Hundreds of ethnic Tripura people marched on the streets demanding justice and compensation for the families of four of their men shot dead by an armed rebel group in Bangladesh’s restive Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).
The Tripura Welfare Associa-tion organized a human chain on July 3 to protest the June 21 killing by an insurgent group called Kuki-Chin National Front in the Bilachhari area of the Rangamati district.
The gunmen fired indiscriminately killing three members of the same family, reports said. Another person was hacked to death, while two children were seriously injured.
The CHT, which includes three hilly and forested districts of Khagrachhari, Bandarban and Rangamati, continues to be restive despite the government signing an accord in 1997 to end more than two decades of deadly insurgency. The latest violence has spread panic among tribal people, some local people say.
Nidharam Tripura and five members of his family sought shelter in a relative’s house after fleeing the village and two days later he heard that four of his neighbors had been killed.
“I can’t say how many shots were fired that evening …I quickly ran to my relative’s house,” Tripura told.
“We are not safe anywhere now. The terrorists have been threatening us for the last few months and they are demanding various resources from us. Now we want protection by the government,” the 49-year-old Baptist said. “No effective action has yet been taken by the government against the terrorists which is extremely worrying”
The Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) and its armed wing, the Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA), are fighting for the rights of the Zo (or Zomi) people. The KNF considers the Bawm, Lusai, Pangkho, Khyang, Khumi and Mru ethnic groups which inhabit the CHT as Zo people.
Many have made unverified claims that the KNF is backed by the government to create unrest among the various hill tribes.
“Despite the KNF’s acknowledgment of the killings and its subsequent eviction, no effective action has yet been taken by the government against the terrorists. It is extremely worrying,” the Jana Samhati Samiti (JSS) said in a statement on July 3.
“We demand the government take strict action against the KNF and arrest the terrorists and bring them before the law as well as provide necessary security for the victims and rehabilitate them in their respective villages with proper compensation,” the statement said.
The JSS is the largest and most influential ethnic political organization in the CHT. It signed a peace agreement with the government in 1997 and members of its armed wing, the Shanti Bahini, laid down their arms.
The peace accord brought an end to more than two decades of armed struggle between the military and the JSS which sought autonomy for the hill tribes. Thousands were killed in the bush war including JSS members, soldiers and civilians.
While JSS’s armed insurgency sought greater autonomy for hill tribes, it was also a violent response to state-sponsored large-scale migration of Bengali Muslims on the hills for a demographic change in the largely tribal region.
A JSS splinter group opposed the peace treaty and formed the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF), triggering a turf war between the two groups. The groups have seen further splits in recent years, intensifying violence.

Parkash Aslam organized 14 seminars on St. Thomas the Apostle prior to the annual pilgrimage at the archaeological site of Sirkap in Taxila, Punjab province.
“Many faithful still have no idea about St. Thomas the Apostle. Both priests and catechists are only interested in celebrating regular Masses. A series of seminars on Catholic saints, especially the Doubting Thomas can help strengthen the faith of minority Christians,” he told.
Since May, the volunteer of the St. Thomas group at St. Gerard Church in Faisalabad has been organizing sessions on one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus in Catholic churches in Faisalabad inviting the faithful to join the July 3 pilgrimage to Sirkap which is home to the ruins of the first church on the Subcontinent.
According to tradition, St. Thomas passed through Taxila on his way to India and preached at the court of King Gondophares. An early 3rd-century Syriac work known as the “Acts of Thomas,” discovered in 1822 in Syria, says the king gave some money to the saint and ordered him to build a royal palace.
St. Thomas, however, gave away all of the money in alms and when the king discovered his disobedience, he ordered that the saint be burnt alive.
Meanwhile, the king’s brother, Gad, died and then miraculously came back to life, whereupon he recounted that in heaven he had seen a palace built for Gondophares by St. Thomas. The king pardoned the saint and converted to Christianity, along with the people of the capital.
One legend has it that St. Thomas himself constructed the throne and preached here for 40 years. As the pilgrimage grew over years in northern Pakistan, the tradition of July 1-3 pilgrimages morphed into an annual fair in 1992.
Volunteers of the St. Thomas group accompanied eight buses from Faisalabad, singing hymns and distributing refreshments along 322.3 kilometers north towards Taxila. The group charged each pilgrim 2,500 rupees (US$12).
They were among more than 3,000 pilgrims who prayed and lit candles at the meter-high throne. The pilgrims later visited the Taxila Museum which also displays a “holy bone” relic of St. Thomas.
According to Father Nasir William, director of the Commission for Social Communications in Islamabad-Rawalpindi diocese, it’s a record since the pandemic began in Pakistan in March 2020.
“Huge crowd in groups turned up, especially from different parishes of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, located behind the Taxila museum, added another attraction for pilgrims this year. Parishioners were advised to wear face masks as coronavirus cases climb across the country,” he said.
The National Command and Operation Center has issued fresh guidelines for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast of sacrifice, urging people to follow standard operating procedures after a 4.61% Covid-19 positive ratio was recorded in the country with 675 cases on July 4.

Christians in Bangladesh’s restive Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region say an uptick in violence and deaths has triggered fear in the community.
In the latest violence, a group of Bengali Muslim settlers burned down 40 houses belonging to ethnic Chakma people in Mahalchhari sub-district of Khagrachhari district on July 5. At least five people were injured, locals said.
The attackers allegedly looted the houses before setting them on fire. Church sources confirmed no Christians were among the victims of the attack.
Mohmmad Ashrafuzzaman, officer-in-charge of Mahalchhari police station said that no case has been filed over the arson attack, but law enforcers have been deployed in the area to avert further violence.
“Police and soldiers have stepped up patrols in the area to prevent any deterioration in law and order. Senior security officials have visited the area,” Ashrafuzzaman told.
“There was a clash between two groups. The accusation of looting is totally baseless. We are keen to maintain a friendship with all” Local media, quoting eyewitnesses, have reported that a group of about 120 to 150 Muslims led by local community leader Mohammad Aziz, vandalized and set fire to the houses in the Joysen para (village) area of Mahalchhari.
Aziz denied the allegations.
“The allegation that we attacked them is not true. There was a clash between two groups. The accusation of looting is totally baseless. We are keen to maintain a friendship with all,” Aziz told.
He also dismissed any communal motive behind the clash, adding that it was sparked after tribal people stopped Bengali people from growing crops in local plots.
Earlier, on June 21, an armed insurgent group, the Kuki-Chin National Front, shot dead three ethnic Tripura people and hacked another including one Christian in the Bilachhari area of Rangamati district.
Rights groups say at least 22 members of ethnic minority groups have been killed in violence in the last year and a series of arson attacks targeted tribal houses. While the rise in violence is mostly blamed on a turf war between armed insurgent groups, arson attacks have occurred due to clashes between Muslims and tribals.
“We are the locals, but today we do not have any security, neither at home nor outside. Often, we do not know who is killing whom, when and why”
Makhonlal Tripura, 29, a Tripura Catholic from neighboring Bandarban district, said Christians are living in fear over a surge in violence in the region.
“We are the locals, but today we do not have any security, neither at home nor outside. Often, we do not know who is killing whom, when and why. The CHT has become a turbulent place,” Tripura, a father of two, told.

Catholic Parveen Bibi’s life is an example of how poor Christian mothers contribute to the Church’s growth in Pakistan
For Mary Song Thi May, a 32-year-old mother of two, her deprived childhood and difficult youth are a distant memory since she embraced Catholicism. “I no longer feel wretched about life as Catholicism is the breath of life to me. Since I met God, I am quite determined to bring divine love to other poor people,” she says while adjusting her colorful ethnic attire.
Mary hails from Ho Sen, a village in the impoverished Hua Nhan commune, in north western Vietnam’s remote and mountainous Son La province, some 300 kilometers from Hanoi.
The Hmong woman makes it a point to visit local families in the evenings to tell them about a mighty God, who is better than nature gods, and the priests and lay Catholics from the local Mai Yen Parish, who extend material support to the needy.
“At first they have no clue what I am talking about, but after several visits they fully understand and ask me to take them to the priests,” she said. “I think it is God who opens their minds and shows them how to come to him.”
On weekends, she gathers local Catholic villagers to her home to say prayers in their native language as they speak little Vietnamese. They console one another, make donations to help people in need, send sick people to hospitals, and pray for good weather and crops.
May in traditional costume serves as a godmother at a baptism in Mai Yen Church in March.
Ho Sen village is a mission station with 24 Hmong families, half of whom converted to Catholicism in the past three years.
The Hmong people in Hua Nhan commune are among the poorest people in Vietnam who eke out a living by growing rice, plums, peach, tea, and other crops on the hills. They also raise cattle and poultry but lack food some parts of the year.
The families, with many children, live in wooden houses that often get damaged by hailstorms and floods. The living conditions are bad and they have little access to education and health care.
Whenever someone falls ill, the family borrows money to buy poultry or cattle and approaches a shaman to make offerings to gods in the hope of an often elusive cure.
May recalls her father died from illness when she was only four months old. When her mother remarried, she was forced to drop out of school as a fifth-grader to look after her younger siblings. She also did the housework, herded cattle, and worked on the farm to support the family.
She was barely 15 years old when she was “kidnapped for marriage” by a teenager who was in grade ten. “I was too young to know what love was,” she said.