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On 30 April 1986,the Bangladesh armed forces attacked six villages in Matiranga Upazilla (sub District): Khetra Mohan Para, Boga Para, Bagya Para, Sarveswar Para, Assalong Para and Talukder Para. On the following day 1May 1986, they invaded two villages in Khagrachari Upazilla: Mahajon Para and Pankheiya Para, and 24 villages in Panchari Upazilla: Shantipur, Latiban, Kamini Member Para, Chitta Ranjan Para, Surya Sen Para, Sachindra Karbari Para, Badidhan Karbari Para,Rangapani Chara, Napida Para, Ratan Muni Para, Golak Pudima, Joutha Khamar Para, Suta Karma Para, Kanago Para, Birendra Karbari Para, Madan Karbari Para, Rabi Singha Karbari Para, Sucharu Master Para, Pujgang Mukh, Ganesh Chandra Karbari Para, Manikya Karbari Para, Mongal Dhan Karbari Para, Dhanendu Karbari Para and Jamindhan Karbari Para. Properties were looted, houses were burnt, women were abducted and gang raped, Buddhist temples were desecrated and destroyed, and the villagers including the Buddhist monks were tortured and murdered.As a result of the Matiranga-Panchari-Khagrachari massacres, some 500 indigenous people mostly old age, women and children were murdered, about 50 villages were destroyed, over 40,000 people were rendered homeless, about dozen Buddhist temples including those at Kalanal, Kamini Member Para, Suta Karma Para, Shantipur (north), Shantipur (south), Rangapani Chara, Panchari and Pujgang were destroyed, many Buddhist monks were wounded and Rev. Purna Nanda Bhikkhu of Kalanal Buddhist temple was hacked to death. The villagers fled to nearby forests for their lives. They lost all their possessions and they had nothing to live on. The only way for them to evade military atrocities was to head towards the Indian border. They had to walk for weeks without food along the most difficult jungle tracks. It was extremely risky for them to enter Tripura as the border was closely guarded by the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR). For example, a group of 200 Jummas of Tripura nationality, mostly old men, women and children from Matiranga Upazilla were fleeing to the Tripura state of India. On 18 May 1986, the BDR rounded up these refugees at the border, took them to Taidong and Comillatilla, and prompted the Bangladeshi settlers to massacre them. The BDR opened fire on even those refugees who managed to slip into Tripura, killing and wounding many of these refugees.An exodus to India was not a new event. But for the first time, the refugees went in very large numbers and refused to be returned. The exodus in 1986 led to the establishment of the six relief camps in the State of Tripura. The camps had an average refugee population of 56,000 and at the height of the influx there were 80,000 refugees in Tripura. |
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Several repatriations occurred over the years, including groups of 1,850 and 3,500 refugees in 1994, but refugees often encountered poor conditions and the Bangladesh authorities did not delivered promised aid, including helping the returnees regain their land.The remaining Jumma refugees were repatriated after a treaty signed between the Jana Samhati Samiti and the Bangladesh Government on 2 December 1997. While the refugees were in India for 12 years, their land is usually taken over by the Bangladeshi settlers who coveted it before the attack. Although the land is legally in the hands of the refugees, there are sometimes problems which exacerbate the difficulties of regaining land. The land documents are frequently destroyed when the houses are burnt, which means that the only records of the deeds lie with the authorities. In some cases the Bangladeshi settlers obtain false documents for the same land and it becomes difficult for the Jumma people to prove ownership. |
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