Rubber Company’s cruelty to the indigenous people

Sanjoy Kumar Barua

Their jum gardens were burnt. Sources of drinking water were poisoned, cultivated banana plantations were cut down. Finally their houses were set on fire, looted and vandalized.

During the attack around 12:30 am on Monday early hours, the men, women and children of the neighborhood ran away, while the attackers looted the essentials from their houses, said Rengyen Mro, Karbari (village chief) of Rengyen Para.

“Lama Rubber Industries Limited Company brought settlers and Rohingyas in seven trucks in the dead of night to occupy our Jhum land. They first looted our houses, then set fire to three houses, and vandalized three more”, said Rengyen.

“The government is not protecting us despite such brutality being inflicted on us continuously. Are we not citizens of this country?” he said.

“Where is the end of this extreme cruelty? Everyone in the neighborhood is in a panic. Villagers of our para are afraid to see people outside. Do we have to prove it with our lives to protect our own land? “, lamented Karbari Rengyen.

“From birth certificate to everything in our house they burnt. Two months of rice was stored in the house. All they burnt to ashes. I don’t know how to survive in the hills with small children in this winter night”, lamented widowed mother of two children, Cham Rum Mro.

Rengyung Mro, another victim, said, “People from Lama Rubber Company cut my banana plantation earlier. They burnt to ashes our houses to evict us. The government is not protecting us despite we are repeatedly tortured.”

On April 27, the Jhum gardens of Langkom Para, Joy Chandra Karbari Para and Rengyen Karbari Para of Lama Upazila of Bandarban were burnt. About one hundred acres of jhum paddy, bamboo, mango, banana, pineapple and various fruits and forest trees were burnt in this fire.

The people of Lama Rubber Industries Limited Company set fire to our Jhum crops in a planned way to grab our ancestral land, said Langkom Mro, Karbari of Langkom Para.

Later, a 5-member committee headed by the deputy director of the local government was formed by the Bandarban Hill District Council to uncover the real facts in this regard. The committee gave 6 recommendations including canceling the lease, but it was not implemented. Instead, on September 6, the only source of water of our para was poisoned, he said.

On September 01, company men looted more than 25 maunds of sweet pumpkins from the fields cultivated by four members of the Mro community while on September 24 they cut down 300 banana trees of Rengyung Mro, said Karbari Langkom Mro.

“We are afraid to even file case at the police station, because neither the police nor the administration has taken any action on so many incidents. Although the police are very active in arresting the accused in the false cases filed against us, they do not take any action in the complaint against Lama Rubber Industries Limited”, he added.

Officer-in-charge of Lama police station Md Shahidul Islam Chowdhury said “We are investigating the accusations brought against the Rubber Company.”

Md Kamal Uddin of Lama Rubber Industries said, “We have not set anyone’s house on fire while our land is occupied by the Mros and Tripuras.”