Crushed by injustice, defiant in spirit: Langkom Mro’s relentless struggle to defend ancestral land

Sanjoy Kumar Barua

For Langkom Mro, the price of defending his ancestral land has been nothing short of devastating— three months in prison, unyielding legal harassment, and a financial abyss that deepens with every passing day.

Each month, he scrapes together 12,000 BDT (roughly $110) just to endure the endless procession of court hearings, all stemming from seven fabricated cases levied by Lama Rubber Industries Ltd. and other shadowy land grabbers.

The day Langkom Mro left for court, his youngest son was crying. His wife, already struggling to feed their five-member family, watched helplessly as he hoped for bail—but he did not return home.

Instead, he was sent to jail—another indigenous land defender punished for protecting his ancestral land.

No explanation—just the brutal reality of being Indigenous in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, where land is more valuable than human lives.

For three months, Langkom, Karbai (village chief) of Langkom Mro Para in remote Bandarban’s Lama sat in a prison cell, not knowing if his son had survived.

He could barely eat, his mind consumed by one question: “What will happen to my family?”

“I had no way to contact them. I didn’t even know if they had food. My son was very sick, and I had no idea if he was alive or dead,” Langkom recalls, his voice cracking.

But his crime was never about law or justice. His crime was defending the land of his ancestors from one of the most ruthless corporate land-grabbing operations in Bangladesh: Lama Rubber Industries Ltd.

Langkom Mro’s suffering is part of a larger, systematic assault on Indigenous communities in CHT, Bangladesh.

Since the signing of the 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord, the relentless land grabbing of Indigenous jhum fields—primarily in Lama, Naikhyangchhari, and Alikadom upazilas of Bandarban—has reached devastating proportions.

The once serene and thriving landscapes are now marred by the invasive presence of private rubber plantation owners and horticulturists.

According to Jumlian Amlai, president of the Bandarban chapter of the Parbatya Chattogram Forest and Land Rights Protection Movement, these illegal land seizures have sparked an escalating conflict over the ancestral lands of the indigenous communities.

One such corporate entity at the heart of this controversy is Lama Rubber Industries, which currently occupies 375 acres of land in Sarai mouza and a staggering 1,225 acres in Daluchhari mouza.

These lands were leased in 1994 for a rubber plantation project with an initial lease agreement set for a period of 40 years, as confirmed by Arif, a spokesperson from the company earlier.

However, beneath the surface of these claims lies a troubling breach of the very agreement that was supposed to regulate the lease.

As revealed by an investigation report from the kanungo (revenue clerk) of the Lama upazila land office in October 2017, one of the pivotal conditions of the lease agreement clearly states that the lessee must complete the plantation project within five years of receiving the land allotment.

But glaringly, Lama Rubber Industries has failed to cultivate any significant crops or develop the land for more than 28 years.

But instead of confining itself to its designated area, the company expanded aggressively, seizing Indigenous Mro and Tripura land through arson, forced evictions, and state-backed repression.

April 26, 2022 – The company set fire to 350 acres of jhum fields in Rengyenpara, Langkompara, and Joychandra Tripura Para, wiping out entire food supplies for hundreds of families.

September 06, 2022 – Company-backed settlers poisoned the only freshwater source, turning drinking water into poison for indigenous villages, leading to food shortages and sickness.

September 24, 2022– the land grabbers also cut down 300 banana trees belonging to an Indigenous villager of Rengyen para and filed multiple false cases against the land defenders of the area.

January 2023 – Armed men burned seven homes in Rengyen Mro Para, forcing families—including children and the elderly—to flee into the jungle.

“First, they burn our crops, then they poison our water, and finally, they jail us for resisting. How do they expect us to live?” asks Langkom Mro.

Langkom’s battle against land encroachment began in 2020, when two powerful land grabbers—Meridian Company and an influential settler named Mokbul Ukil—filed cases against him.

Then, in 2023, Lama Rubber Industries escalated its persecution, slapping him with five more lawsuits in an attempt to financially cripple and silence him.

“I never thought defending our land would cost me everything,” says Langkom.

Even after his release from jail in the middle of 2023, the battle is far from over.

Already drowning in debt, he has borrowed over 100 thousand taka to cover legal expenses.

“I don’t have money to buy food, let alone fight these cases. I am sick, but I can’t afford a doctor. Every month, I must beg and borrow just to prove my innocence. Is this what justice looks like?”

Yet, even as he suffers, Langkom refuses to surrender.

“Even if they kill me, they will not take this land. This is my home, my history, my identity. If we lose this land, we lose everything.”

Despite multiple complaints to authorities and even a directive from the National Human Rights Commission, the government has done nothing to stop Lama Rubber Industries Ltd.’s land-grabbing spree.

Instead, they protect the perpetrators and imprison the victims.