Blood on the Hill: Chittagong’s non-Muslims vs Bangladeshi Army

Chittagong burns and bleeds as non-Muslim cotninue to suffer under the Yunus regime. When a teenage Marma girl survived a gang-rape near Khagrachhari in late September 2025, something snapped. Chittagong’s youth saw protests as the only desperate hope for justice. Road blockades, candle marches, and chants led by student group Jumma Chhatra Janata — spiraled into a night of arson, gunfire, and deaths.

Eyewitnesses and local outlets say the Bangladeshi Army fired on demonstrators, and markets and homes were burnt down.

Allegedly, houses of minority Buddhists and Hindus were torched while people pleaded for protection. This is not an isolated riot. It reads like the latest chapter in a half-century pattern of dispossession, settler violence, and state collusion in the Chittagong Hill Tracts – where indigenous women have repeatedly borne the worst of the region’s lawlessness.

The Injustice Spark – Why is Chittagong Bleeding?

Local student activists organized a dawn-to-dusk blockade after an attack on the schoolgirl in Khagrachhari. Videos and reports show roads cut, tyres set ablaze, and crowds demanding arrests. When arrests did not come fast enough, anger spread.

Reports from regional outlets describe clashes in Guimara (Khagrachhari), where, according to witnesses, security forces opened fire and a market caught fire.

As ambulances ferried the injured to hospitals, terrified residents sheltered in homes. Multiple local outlets and social-media eyewitnesses reported at least 3-4 fatalities and dozens injured in the early days of unrest. Authorities say they are investigating; community leaders demand immediate arrests and independent probes.

A Pattern of Marginalisation and Impunity

The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) have borne structural injustice since Pakistan’s 1970s counterinsurgency. Then, Bangladesh’s post-1971 settlement policies encouraged mass Bengali migration to the hills. Human-rights groups and regional historians show decades of land grabs, demographic engineering, and the use of state-backed settlers and security forces to weaken tribal resistance and erase indigenous claims.

World human-rights monitors repeatedly raised alarm about sexual violence, arbitrary detention, and militarized development projects that push indigenous families from ancestral lands. In short: when crimes — especially sexual crimes against minority women — surface, victims often face layers of neglect.

From local police apathy to bureaucratic delay – perpetrators enjoy outright protection and the women are left without justice.

Bangladeshi Army vs Chittagong Minorities

Multiple eyewitness accounts from the recent unrest allege that instead of shielding protestors, security forces either stood by or used force against the indigenous demonstrators. Residents say masked mobs – described as “peaceful” settlers – looted shops and burned homes. This came after the clashes with police and the Army; photos circulated online show smoke and charred storefronts.

Activists say attackers act with impunity precisely because of collusive local power structures: patronage networks, land disputes, and political shelter.

International monitors and NGOs repeatedly urged Dhaka to de-militarize responses, ensure transparent investigations, and prosecute perpetrators irrespective of identity. However, any progress is painfully slow or non-existent.

That an eighth-grader’s assault could morph into mass violence speaks to two tragedies that run together: the sexual victimization of indigenous girls and a state security apparatus that often treats tribal protest as “law-and-order” rather than human-rights emergencies.

For Jumma activists, the calls are straightforward and stark: arrest the culprits, return land rights, and hold security forces accountable. For many victims and their relatives, court cases and press releases offer little comfort. When indigenous villages smolder and daughters cannot walk home safely, Chittagong is a living nightmare for Bangladesh’s minorities.

Will the World Awaken To Reality?

This crisis in Chittagong is not a remote tribal squabble. Instead, it is symptomatic of an unresolved national wound. Bangladesh’s Yunus Sarkar fails the test of democracy. It is unable to ensure impartial investigations or prosecute alleged culprits (“peaceful” settlers, security personnel, or civilians). Moreover, they are unable to provide reparations to victims without interference from politics.

Human-rights groups are helpless, and the world is blind to the plight of the non-Muslims of Bangladesh in the Chittagong Hill Tract.

As Pakistan’s influence and Jamaat-e-Islami turn Bangladesh into a new version of Razakar Raj, the Buddhist and Hindu females become free game. Yunus’ regime is unable to deliver justice. The media is muzzled under the “peaceful” Jamaat’s agression. Bangladesh’s culturally and civilizationally connected non-Muslims are under attack.

The World must press for accountability – because silence or selective outrage only normalizes patterns of abuse and attack.