Hill
Student's Council
Pahari Chattra Parishad (PCP) or Hill Students Council is
a student organisaition of the Jumma students studying in
various educational institutions in and outside of the Chittagong
Hill Tracts. It was founded on 20 May 1989 in the backdrop
of the gruesome Langudu Massacre in which more than 36 innocent
Jumma people were killed in the most brutal fashion. To protest
the incident, representatives of university based independent
Jumma student bodies met in a meeting at Dhaka and resolved
to form a unified student organistion to resist government
repression in the CHT. The following day a silent procession
was organised in Dhaka under the banner of the Greater Chittagong
Hill Tracts Hill Students Council in protest against the Langudu
Massacere. This marked the beginning of a new era in the history
of the struggle of the Jumma people.
The
PCP soon spread throughout the Chittagong Hill Tracts and
became the symbol of democratic resistance to state repression
in CHT. It not only organised the Jumma students, but also
rallied, in the absence of an overground political platform,
different sections of the Jumma people behind it. Defying
military control and surveillance, the PCP held rallies and
public meetings all over the CHT. The most powerful programme
that was ever undertaken by PCP was the historic Logang Long
March, which was organised on 28 April 1992 to protest the
mass killing of Jumma people at a cluster village at Logang
in Khagrachari district. Hundreds of thousands of people took
part in the march that traversed 50 kilometers starting from
Khagrachari town.
The
journey of the PCP has never been easy. The government and
the military left no stone unturned to stem the emerging tide
of democratic movement led the PCP. On the one hand the government
policy makers on CHT floated communal Bengali settlers organisations
as to counter the PCP, on the other hand, they began to crack
down on its members and supporters. Many were detained without
specific charges and trial. From 1991 to1993 the High Court
heard and found roughly 130 cases of detention illegal. The
court ordered their immediate release. But this could not
stop repression of the members of the PCP.
When
every attempt to suppress the PCP was failed, the military
picked up anti-social and criminal elements among the Jumma
youths and formed a terrorist organisation styled Pahari
Chattra Parishad, Pahari Gano Parishad-er Santras Pratirodh
Committee or PPSPC (Committee for resisting terrorism
by Hill Students Council and Hill Peoples Council), popularly
known as Mukhosh Bahini or masked force, as its members used
to take part in military sponsored processions with their
faces under cover. The Mukhosh Bahini lasted from September
1995 to December 1996 and in the face of popular resistance,
the military finally had to decommission it. Later, the Jana
Samhati Samiti happily inducted some of the Mukhosh Bahini
members into its ranks to pit them against the United Peoples
Democratic Front (UPDF).
The
PCP denounces the CHT accord signed between the Government
of Bangladesh and the Jana Samhati Samiti in December 1997
terming it as inadequate. In 1998 PCP co-sponsored a party
preparatory conference held in Dhaka and helped found a new
party - United People's Democratic Front (UPDF) to carry on
the struggle for the right to self determination. PCP is now
campaigning for full autonomy under the leadership of this
new party.
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