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Violence in Khagrachhari, Bangladesh, after the alleged gang rape of a tribal girl left three dead and dozens injured. Authorities enforced Section 144 as unrest spread.
Violence breaks out in Bangladesh. (ANI)
At least three people have been killed and dozens were injured on Sunday as clashes erupted in parts of the southeastern Bangladesh hills between aboriginal tribesmen and the settler Bengali community despite intensified security over the alleged gang rape of a tribal girl.
Police confirmed the deaths of three men but did not release their identities. Residents and witnesses reported that both sides in the feud resorted to violence, setting fire to each other’s homes and businesses in Khagrachhari hill district, around 270 kilometres northeast of Dhaka along the motorway, news agency PTI reported.
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The unrest followed the alleged gang rape of an eighth-grade schoolgirl in Khagrachhari district on Tuesday, one of the three hill districts of Chittagong Hill Tracts bordering India and Myanmar. The home ministry in Dhaka said 13 army personnel and three policemen were injured in the violence.
The violence first erupted in Khagrachhari district headquarters, where the aboriginal people, mostly belonging to Chakma and Marma tribes, on Saturday enforced a roadblock with burning tyres, tree trunks and bricks, prompting authorities to enforce movement restrictions and rallies.
However, the three deaths were reported from the Guimara area, 36 kilometres south of Khagrachhari, as the violence spread beyond the district headquarters despite patrols by military and paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) forces alongside police.
The girl was allegedly gang raped on her way from a private tuition and was reportedly found by her parents and neighbours at around midnight in an unconscious state in an isolated area in the town.
She received treatment at a local hospital, while police, with military assistance, later arrested a Bengali teenager suspected of being one of the rapists. He is currently under interrogation on a six-day remand, as ordered by the court.
On Saturday, the district administration enforced Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) banning organised movements and rallies at Khagrachhari district headquarters and its suburban townships, but the restrictions largely failed to quell the unrest.
“Three people were killed in gunshots at Guimara. Their bodies have been kept at Khagrachhari Sadar Hospital,” police’s deputy inspector general Ahsan Habib told reporters.
A local journalist told PTI that hospital doctors merely confirmed receiving the bodies. However, they refused to specify whether the dead were ethnic minority people or Bengalis.
“The authorities have enforced Section 144, but a curfew-like situation prevails at Khagrachhari town as people preferred to stay indoors, fearing the outbreak of escalating violence,” a senior journalist in the hill district, Jiten Barua, told PTI.
In a statement issued Sunday evening in Dhaka, the Home Ministry expressed regret over the casualties and pledged legal action against those responsible following an “immediate investigation.” It added that “no criminals will be spared” and urged the public to remain calm and patient.
District administration has banned rallies and restricted organised movements.
In October last year, Muhammad Yunus’ interim government imposed a temporary ban on tourists in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) amid rising sectarian tensions between local ethnic minority communities and Bengali settlers.
The CHT had experienced a two-decade insurgency until a peace deal was struck in 1997. The region is the abode of over a dozen mostly Buddhist majority ethnic minority groups.
The 1997 peace accord between the then government of now-ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the Parbatya Chattogram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS) brought an end to the insurgency over regional autonomy for the hill communities.
But sporadic unrest continued mostly due to in-fights among different breakaway factions of tribal groups, including PCJSS and United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF), a political party based in the CHT.
(With inputs from PTI)
Bangladesh
September 29, 2025, 12:25 IST
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