Army tortures 3 in Gangaram, Baghaichari
Soldiers from Baghaichari Army Zone on 17 November 2005 arrested three innocent Jummas after raiding the village of Gangaram Mukh under Sajek Union in Rangamati district.
The raid and arrest followed an altercation between Gyana Ratan Chakma (40), one of the arrestees, and two unnamed army security intelligence personnel earlier in the day.
These two unsuspecting army spies used to visit a village tea shop every day. On the day of incident they locked in a vicious quarrel with Gyana Ratan Chakma over a trifling issue. The matter could have ended there. But as personal vendetta overtook them, the innocents had to pay the price.
In the night the soldiers led by Mohammad Mojib, second-in-command of the camp, and accompanied by these two army spies, raided the house of Gyana Ratan Chakma in Gangaram Mukh. As the army began to beat him, he screamed for help. Hearing this, Michael Chakma (30) s/o Pattor Chakma and Jagadish Dewan (35) s/o Ranjit Dewan rushed to his home to see what went wrong.
The marauding soldiers caught them too and beat them up mercilessly. Later the army took the three of them to the zone headquarter and handed them over to the police the following day.
The army declared that they had found firearms including one pistol from the possession of Gyana Ratan Chakma and lodged a case under Arms Act.
The ill fated Jummas are now languishing in Rangamati jail.
Prepared by Human Rights Monitoring Cell, United People's Democratic Front (UPDF). January 06, 2006.
