Bangladesh deploys troops to quell ethnic violence
By DPA, IANSTuesday, February 23, 2010
DHAKA - Bangladesh deployed troops in the southeastern Khagrachhari district Tuesday after clashes between rival ethnic groups left at least 15 people hurt and several houses torched, officials said.
“The hill town turned into a battlefield as rival groups fought at different places,” district police chief Sharier Khan said.
Soldiers fired bullets in the air to disperse feuding tribal groups and Bengali migrants in the district, 275 km southeast of capital Dhaka.
Similar violence occurred days earlier in the neighbouring Rangamati district, leaving at least two people dead and houses torched.
Army and police on patrol were enforcing curfew, one resident said by telephone.
“Anyone found outside will be arrested,” he said, quoting the army announcement.
Long-standing animosity exists between indigenous communities and Bengali settlers in the Chittagong Hill tracts, home to at least 12 ethnic minority groups.
The region was battered by insurgency for more than two decades until a peace deal was inked between the government and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti, a political platform of the tribal people, in late 1997.
