Staff Reporter:
The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) has been plagued by a rampant proliferation of illegal firearms, contributing to the deterioration of the region’s overall law and order situation.
Despite the signing of the CHT Peace Accord in 1997, which stipulated the surrender of weapons, many regional parties and organisations continue to possess sophisticated firearms in Bandarban, Khagrachhari and Rangamati districts.
They use the arms for various criminal activities, including kidnap, robbery, extortion and attacks on security forces, in the CHT, which comprises one-tenth of Bangladesh.
According to intelligence sources, five major groups – Jana Samhati Samity (JSS), United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF), UPDF (Democratic), JSS (Reformist) and Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) – possess huge amounts of weapons.
Although there is no data on the exact figure of firearms, an intelligence officer, seeking not to be named, told the Daily Sun that the four regional parties and a banned outfit may have over 4,000 sophisticated firearms, including AK-47s, in their possession.
“We estimate that the JSS has over 2,000 arms while the UPDF has more than 1,200. The banned outfit KNF has about 500 and the UPDF (Democratic) and the JSS (Reformist) have around 200 weapons each,” he said.
Another intelligence source said members of the regional parties and KNF themselves can produce pistols and guns.
Firearms like AK-47 and bullets are smuggled from neighbouring countries, the source added.
During the recent unrest in the CHT, a number of tribal men were seen possessing arms. They also fired bullets at the security forces. The Daily Sun has obtained a video of such an incident.
About the arms, UPDF Spokesperson Aongay Marma told the Daily Sun that they have no firearms.
Other regional parties could not be contacted for comments.
Parbatya Chattogram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) and the government signed the CHT Peace Accord in December 1997 when the PCJSS or JSS surrendered some firearms to the government, but not all.
As per the agreement, the PCJSS was supposed to fix a date for the surrender of all the arms with a list of its members within 45 days of the signing of the accord.
However, the date is yet to be fixed and the list was never produced, let alone surrendering all the firearms.
As the members of all the regional parties and KNF possess illegal firearms, they are often getting engaged in gunfights, killings, abductions and extortions to establish their supremacy and meet their financial needs, said locals and intelligence sources.
Sometimes, they carry out armed attacks on the security forces too.
A total of 22 members of security forces have so far been killed and 111 injured in attacks by the parties and the banned outfit in the CHT.
On 20 September, members of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) busted a den of insurgents and recovered a huge amount of arms, ammunition, drones and advanced technology equipment from Dopanichhara along the Bandarban border.
