DU Correspondent :
A group of Dhaka University (DU) students alleged that foreign forces, including India and the United States, are conspiring to destabilise the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) with the goal of dividing the region from Bangladesh by manipulating the indigenous communities.
These students, who hail from the CHT, made the claims during a demonstration on Friday at the university’s Anti-Terrorism Raju Sculpture Memorial. Organised under the banner of ‘Students for Sovereignty,’ they outlined seven demands to safeguard Bangladesh’s territorial integrity.
Throughout the demonstration, the students chanted slogans to emphasise their demands, asserting that Bangladesh must not allow CHT to become a proxy battleground in the ongoing geopolitical conflict between the U.S., India, and China. They urged the government to adopt a neutral stance in the Indo-Pacific Strategy.
“A group is conspiring to separate the Chittagong Hill Tracts from Bangladesh. CHT is part of our country, and any attempt to divide it will face strong opposition. We will not tolerate such conspiracies,” declared DU student Nurul Gani Sagir during the rally.
Another student, Tahseef Mahfuz, accused India of creating instability by supplying arms to the indigenous groups in CHT. “We are not against the indigenous people but against the terrorists operating there,” Mahfuz said.
Supreme Court lawyer Advocate Sheikh Omar, who expressed solidarity with the rally, said, “Terrorist groups are openly active in CHT, and some indigenous people are calling for Indian intervention. Not just India, but the U.S. is also clearly involved in these conspiracies surrounding the CHT.”
The students demanded the interim government abolish the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation of 1900 and implement a uniform law for all citizens of Bangladesh, including those in CHT.
They also called for the prohibition of terms like ‘indigenous,’ ‘Jumma,’ and ‘settler’ in reference to the local communities and proposed blacklisting NGOs that use such language.
Their seven-point demand also included abolishing the tribal quota in universities and government jobs, labeling hill-armed groups as terrorist organisations, expanding army camps in response to ongoing instability, and repealing the 1997 CHT Peace Accord.