At least three indigenous Tripura men were hospitalized, with one in critical condition, following a violent assault and attempted arson by suspected land grabbers in the remote Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh.
The coordinated attacks took place on Sunday, June 21, in Naziram Tripura Para village, located in the Gazalia Union of Bandarban district’s Lama Upazila. Local sources report that the violence erupted from a long-running dispute over ancestral territory forcibly targeted for occupation by a local Bengali settler.
The victims identified as Shimon Tripura, 37, Gabriel Tripura, 17, and Newton Tripura, 38—suffered severe lacerations to their heads, shoulders, and limbs after being attacked with machetes, knives, and blunt weapons. All three were rushed to the Lama Upazila Health Complex, where doctors reported Shimon Tripura remains in critical condition due to extensive blood loss.
According to community leaders, the targeted land has been lawfully owned and peacefully cultivated by the Tripura family for over two decades. However, a local resident identified as Md. Bazlur Rahman, 80, recently staked an unauthorized claim to the property. Although community arbitration meetings involving local council representatives validated the Tripuras' land titles and found severe discrepancies in Rahman's documentation, Rahman allegedly chose to bypass the resolution.
Witnesses stated that the crisis escalated at approximately 3:00 PM on Sunday when Rahman and an unidentified group of accomplices began illegally constructing structures on the disputed property. When the indigenous landowners protested, they were ambushed.
The violence intensified hours later at around 6:00 PM, when a larger armed mob of 30 to 40 individuals stormed the village. The attackers ransacked indigenous homes and attempted to set them on fire, triggering widespread panic. Villagers who intervened to extinguish the flames were systematically beaten, and the armed group issued public death threats to the victims' families before fleeing the area.
The brutal assault has left the remote indigenous community paralyzed by fear, amid a pervasive sense of insecurity across the hillside tracts. Local leaders have strongly condemned the violence, demanding the immediate arrest and prosecution of Rahman who is also reportedly an absconding suspect in a decades-old cable theft case dating back to 1983.
As of Monday, the victims' families were preparing to file a formal criminal case with local police authorities. Land disputes between indigenous communities and incoming settlers remain a critical human rights flashpoint in Bangladesh’s southeastern hill districts, frequently escalating into targeted communal violence over natural resources and ancestral domains.
Photo – Hill voice
