“Where Seeking Justice for a Mother’s Murder is Forbidden”

The air of the hills today carries only cries of anguish, the wails of grieving families, and a suffocating silence filled with fear. How terrifying must a situation become when a child cannot even ask for justice for their murdered mother? How deep must the shadow of fear stretch for people to be locked in a prison of silence before the blood has even dried? There is no rule of law in the Chittagong Hill Tracts anymore — there is only the rule of the gun held by JSS and UPDF, a reign of terror, murder, threats, and the horrifying culture of impunity.

Just yesterday morning, in the village of Hatimara in Panchhari, a three-year-old child named Bondhona Chakma watched as armed terrorists gunned down her mother, Ruposhi Chakma (25), right in front of her eyes. When the armed goons from JSS and UPDF unleashed this terror to showcase their power, Ruposhi’s husband, Hemonto Chakma, could never have imagined that the foundation of his family would be so easily destroyed.

This is nothing new — such incidents have become frighteningly common in the hills. On January 13 this year, Umepru Marma was shot dead by JSS terrorists in Bandarban. On February 12, 2024, a clash between two local armed groups in Sajek left seven-year-old Romeo Tripura severely injured, and after months of treatment, he too succumbed to his wounds. Even back in 2004, 13-year-old Putuli Chakma was shot dead by UPDF. There are countless such stories.

But were any of these murders ever brought to justice? Not a single one even made it to a proper case filing at the police station. After Ruposhi Chakma’s murder, the Officer-in-Charge of Panchhari police station openly stated — no one came forward to file a complaint. Her family couldn’t gather the courage, because they knew that demanding justice would only invite even more brutality.

There is no longer any trace of state governance in the Chittagong Hill Tracts — all that remains is the unwritten rule of terror imposed by armed groups. Here, when a child is killed in front of their parents, the parents stay silent. When parents are killed in front of their children, no one dares speak up. Everyone knows — if you ask for justice, the consequences will be even more brutal.

These armed groups have committed countless murders in the hills and silenced every one of them under the weight of fear. These gruesome killings never come to light, and no one dares to expose them.

When certain “civil society” voices echo the propaganda that the hills are under military rule, one has to ask — if the military truly controlled the hills, would a single murder fail to even become a police case? If there were true military rule, how could armed groups brazenly kill civilians and silence entire families with fear? In reality, it is only the presence of the military that has kept the death toll from reaching unimaginable heights. Without the military, the body count would have spiraled completely out of control.

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Today, no one in the hills knows who will become the next Ruposhi Chakma. It could be tomorrow, the day after, or even today — when another child stands before their mother’s lifeless, blood-soaked body and asks, “What was my mother’s crime?” But no one will answer, because in these hills, there is no one left to answer such questions.

Today, Ruposhi Chakma’s three-year-old daughter sits silently, too young to understand anything. But when she grows up, she will learn that her mother’s murder never saw justice. And when that happens, the fragile foundation of justice in the hills will crumble even further, sinking deeper into lawlessness and impunity.

Just think — how much fear, how much captivity must exist for a family to remain silent after their mother is murdered? How lawless must a region become for people to turn the murders of their loved ones into silent funeral processions, without ever daring to demand justice?

Will this anarchy, this brutal culture of impunity, ever see the light of justice? Or will every family in the hills, one by one, be dragged into the same endless silence that now haunts Ruposhi Chakma’s family?

Md. Saiful Islam
Southeast Asia Journal.