Court annuls councils administering Chittagong Hill Tracts
By IANSWednesday, April 14, 2010
DHAKA - The high court has annulled regional councils under which Bangladeshs Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) were being administered for the minority Buddhist indigenous people, delivering a major blow to the decade-long peace process.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which is opposed to the peace accord, welcomed the court verdict.
The high court bench of Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed and Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury Tuesday declared illegal the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council Act 1998.
It also annulled the laws under which the three regional councils for the Rangamati, Khagrachari and Bandarban districts in the CHT have been governed, saying the amended provisions violated the “sanctity of a unitary state”.
The courts judgment came after hearing two writ petitions. One was filed in 2000 by Badiuzzaman, a Bengali settler in the CHT, and the other by Tajul Islam, a pro-Jamaat lawyer, in 2007 challenging the legality of the CHT Peace Treaty, New Age newspaper said Wednesday.
The government said it would challenge it and a number of Buddhist leaders hoped the government would do so immediately.
The December 1997 peace accord signed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during her earlier tenure has not been declared illegal, but the measures to implement it amid frequent violence could be put on hold, political analysts said.
The peace accord promised to end a long-standing armed conflict and grant a host of benefits to the indigenous people occupying the south-eastern region of Bangladesh
The CHT, home to the Buddhist tribals who are the second largest religious minority in Bangladesh, were allocated to then East Pakistan by British administrator Cyril Radcliff who divided India in 1947.
Successive governments have settled Bengali Muslims there to keep control over the insurgency-prone region. This has led to frequent clashes between the settlers and the tribals.
In the last such clash in February in Khagrachari, hundreds of houses of tribals were burnt down and places of worship vandalised.
