"This 13 years old Chakma girl was gang raped by the members of the Bangladesh Army on 19 December 1986. About 20 personnel of the Bangladesh Army from the army camp at Viswa Ram Karbari Para of Dighinala, raided the Jumma village of Nuaram Karbari Para, at such a time in the morning when all the male inhabitants of the village were taken by force to cut the jungle surrounding the army camp. The soldiers of the Bangladesh Army encircled the village at 11:00 a.m. and on the pretext of making searches entered the houses. All the women and the girls who were in their houses, were stripped by the soldiers and were subjected to gang rape. Even the minors were not spared" "" This 13 years old Chakma girl was gang raped by the members of the Bangladesh Army on 19 December 1986. About 20 personnel of the Bangladesh Army from the army camp at Viswa Ram Karbari Para of Dighinala, raided the Jumma village of Nuaram Karbari Para, at such a time in the morning when all the male inhabitants of the village were taken by force to cut the jungle surrounding the army camp. The soldiers of the Bangladesh Army encircled the village at 11:00 a.m. and on the pretext of making searches entered the houses. All the women and the girls who were in their houses, were stripped by the soldiers and were subjected to gang rape. Even the minors were not spared.
The Bangladeshi security personnel have been inflicting rape upon the Jumma women since the conflict started in the mid 1970s. The Bangladesh military systematically use rape as a deliberate tactic to destroy or damage the Jumma nation. Women are targeted by the military for two objectives: as a member of the 'enemy' and as a female individual. By raping a woman the oppressor does not just aim at hurting her personally, he takes what's a woman's private possession and at the same time tramples and humiliates the identity of the Jumma people as a whole. Jumma women are made pregnant by the Bangladesh military and thus are forced to give birth to children of the enemy. According to the Hill Women's Federation (HWF), there have been 47 reported cases of rapes between January 1991 and June 1992, five in 1993, four in 1994 and twelve in 1995. The HWF maintains that there have been many more such instances, but due to social taboos and fear of reprisals, the victims or their families do not come forward with this kind of information. The Jumma women are especially attractive and exotic to the Bangladeshis. They move around more freely and are not bound by the same cultural and religious impositions that restrict the freedom of movement of Muslim women. These cultural differences combined with the military presence and the increasing domination of Bengali Muslim culture in the CHT have made the Jumma women more exposed to sexual attacks and harassment. The CHT Commission interviewed some rape victims in the refugee camps of Tripura, India. A woman told the CHT Commission:
"About 50 army personnel came in the night and rounded up the whole village and gathered us in one place. In the morning all the men were arrested. I was tied up hands and legs, naked. They raped me. There were three women there. They raped me in front of my father-in-law. After that we were tied up together, naked, facing each other. Then they left. Three other girls were raped in front of me. This happened in the month of Ashar (June/July) of 1985."Another refugee woman from Dighinala told in Tripura:"In the early morning 5 to 6 groups of soldiers encircled the village and some entered the huts. They caught all men and brought them to the fields and tied them with rope. My husband had his teeth beaten out of him, all blood. My son ran to his father and he was thrown to one side. The army ordered me to go into my hut and pointed guns at me. One grabbed me by the neck. My husband was near. My husband was almost beaten to death. I was raped by three soldiers in the room. After this I didn't want to live anymore, but what am I to do? I am still suffering from it. My husband is still injured in the lungs and can't work. I want to go back if there is peace, otherwise not. I want medical treatment as I am still suffering from the rape. I am still afraid of Muslims. My ribs were broken and my skin burns there. This happened in June 1986. I am still like mad, disturbed."A woman from Matiranga told what happened to her in April 1986:"They (the army) surrounded the village early in the morning, we had not yet got up. Then they shouted to come out of the houses and concentrated all the people in one place. Then they started asking whether we had helped the SB (Shanti Bahini). All of us kept silent. ...Then they started beating the men and the women. One girl was taken by three soldiers. I don't know where she was taken. Then it was my turn. Two soldiers took me and subjected me to abuse. I was fully naked, they harassed me, they even poked me with a bayonet. I was left alone. I didn't know what to do. Somehow I managed to cover my body with some cloth and went to the jungle and kept walking till I reached India."Life in the cluster villages is not safe, especially for women. Women in cluster villages are more vulnerable to rape by Bangladesh Army personnel and are often forced to spend the night with their rapist. A man in one of the refugee camps explained:"I was forced to live in a cluster village. We had to come here because we have a teenage daughter and we were afraid that she would be raped by the army. ...A woman neighbor was raped in 1989 after the cluster village was established. She then fled to India, together with 22 other families."Sometimes educated women are specifically targeted by the military. Recounting an army attack on her village, one woman who worked in a rubber plantation told the CHT Commission:"The army raped some of the women, especially college students and women working in offices. Many girls were taken to the army camp. After this incident (1989), intellectuals of the village were arrested by the army so as to prevent them from taking shelter in India. ...The girls who were taken away to the army camps were released after one week. In the camp the army raped them repeatedly."Forced itermarriage is one way in which women are used as an instrument to integrate the Jumma people into Islamic Bangladeshi society and to alter the demographic profile in the area. Many Jumma women had been kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam and married. Jumma women were murdered who refused to be converted and married. A woman who came to Tripura in July 1990 told the Commission:"I was walking along the road to go to the fields with my six-year old niece to plant some seeds. A man appeared before us, bound my mouth with a piece of cloth and took me away on his scooter. . .I was kept for three months. I was forcibly converted to Islam and married."Rape is used systematically as a weapon against Jumma women in the CHT. Rape is a recurring characteristics of attacks by the Bangladesh military and by the BD settlers on Jumma villages. Many women were gang raped by the soldiers of the Bangladesh Army, often in front of their children. Women live in continuous fear of rape. Women who have been raped may be rejected by their husbands or their families, or may not be able to get married. If they become pregnant they have to conceal this fact and must try to have an abortion. If a child is born it is impossible for the woman to stay in her community as the situation is not accepted and she is ostracized. For these reasons women who have been raped hesitate to talk about it at all because they are scared or worried about the social stigma. This makes it difficult to collect information on such sensitive issue. The trauma of rape remains with these women form years, and many of them are still suffering from its repercussions years later.
"Kalpana Chakma was known as an active women rights activist in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (hereafter CHT). She had been vehemently criticising Bangladesh military repressions and harassments on the Jumma men and women. She had specially been working for the emancipation of the Jumma women from becoming victims of the Bangladesh military's lustful flame by organising conferences, seminar's and meetings in various parts of the CHT. She had also been lending her strong support to the autonomy oriented movement in the CHT spearheaded by the Jana Samhati Samiti (hereafter JSS), an underground political platform of the CHT's Jummas. In the last general parliamentary elections of Bangladesh held on 12 June 1996 she took active part in electioneering in favour of the independent candidate, who is considered to be the reflection of the JSS on the open ground of the CHT. All these activities turned her into the direct target of the Bangladesh Army.
It was then about 01:00 a.m. of the 12 June, just 6 hours ahead of the general election of Bangladesh when Kalpana Chakma was abducted by the members of the Bangladesh Army from her home at Lallyaghona village of the CHT. An army Lieutenant named Ferdous with his 11 soldiers from the nearby Kojoichari army barrack raided Kalpana Chakma's home at that night and picked her up forcibly. Kalpana's mother 60 years old Badhuni Chakma told reporters -
"We were asleep when someone called out from outside and wanted to know who were inside the house. Then they pulled down the latch of the door from outside and entered the house. They kept powerful torchlight on our face and took away my younger son Khudiram saying that his 'Sir' (Lieut. Ferdous) wanted to talk to him. Few minutes later they took away my elder son Kalicharan and my daughter Kalpana leaving behind myself and Kalicharan's wife."Kalicharan Chakma, a farmer and bread winner of the family said that three were blindfolded and tied by the hands near the well of the house and were asked to sit down. Kalicharan said -"Some were wearing army fatigues and some had lungis tied up to their waists. They first took Khudiram from us. They were speaking in Bengali."Khudiram Chakma, brother of Kalpana Chakma described how he escaped -"I was asked to dip into the water near the well. As soon as I did so, someone shouted 'shoot him'. Sensing imminent death I somehow untied my hand, removed blindfold around my eyes and started running in the waist deep water. I could hear one gunshot behind me but I kept running."Kalicharan said that after they led Khudiram away, Kalpana was taken away from his side."On hearing the gunshot and the shoutings few yards away I untied my hand, removed the fold around my eyes and jumped into the water, they shot at me once and as I ran I could hear Kalpana cry out Dada, Dada, mahre baja (brother, brother, rescue me)."The news of the tragic incident dispersed in all directions immediately and the neighbours came to know what actually happened. In the early morning Khudiram with the help of Samrat Sur Chakma approached Kojoichari army camp to enquire about Kalpana Chakma from the camp authority. The camp authority at once branded him "Shanti Bahini" "(the rebels) and threatened him to death. He returned home frustrated. Kalicharan on the other hand, went to te local Baghaichari Police Station to register a First Information Report (FIR). But neither the police station nor the army camp took any action to release Kalpana Chakma from the abductors The Superintendent of Police (SP) of Rangamati under severe criticism of various national and international organisations visited Kalpana's home and informed that there were as many as 180 Bangladesh Army barracks in Rangamati district alone and so it was not possible for him to search all of them. On 14 July, 1996 several women organisations jointly submitted a memo to the Home Minister of Bangladesh who advised the team to meet the Prime Minister as the Home Ministry is not concerned with law and order in the CHT. The minister also told that the CHT being an Operational Zone, was an affair of the General Officer in Command (GOC) of the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh army and he had nothing to do with the issue.
On 18 July, 1996 the Bangladesh Army circulated leaflets from a helicopter declaring Taka 50,000 for information about the whereabout of Kalpana Chakma. It seems to be the climax of the whole conundrum as the army who abducted Kalpana are wanting to give an amount of Taka 50,000 as prize to whomever can supply the clue to her disappearance. It's very ridiculous and is like an attempt by a thief to catch himself. That's why, the Hill Watch Human Rights Forum (HWHRF), a human rights organisation blamed the military authorities for deliberately trying to cover up the truth. At first the Bangladesh Army strongly denied the accusation that Leiutenant Ferdous or any other memeber of the army was involved in the abduction of Kalpana Chakma. Later in the face of strong protest and condemnation, the Bangladesh Army made another attempt to cover up the issue by terming the whole incident as a"love affair". But this statement failed to convince the people. The statement rather proved the involvement of the army. The army again changed its statement and on 23 July 1996 released a statement which runs like this - "Kalpana Chakma had a passport and went abroad secretly". But the claim of the army had been verified by the Jumma activists and it was found that Kalpana Chakma had no passport.
On 27 June 1996 the Jumma activists staged demonstration throughout the CHT to press its demand for the release of Kalpana Chakma. During the demonstration 16 year old Rupam Chakma was shot down by the police and three others were missing in Baghaichari.
Abduction of Kalpana Chakma was not an isolated incident. As Tripura based human rights group Humanity Protection Forum puts it - "previously many Jumma girls were abducted by the Bangladeshi security forces and Muslim settlers and were forced to marry the abductors". Kalpana Chakma is still missing. It's believed that her flesh has been misused by a notorious group of the Bangladesh Army without impunity, while the Bangladesh Government remains as a passive onlooker. It's believed that she has been kept under terrible condition by the Bangladesh Army. It's a gross violation of human rights of the Jumma people. Abduction of Jumma women by the Bangladeshi security forces and the Bangladeshi settlers will continue until the CHT is dimilitarised and the settlers are withdrawn.