Ethnic violence

Bangladesh arrests more than 70 in ethnic violence


By JULHAS ALAM
Associated Press
2010-02-24 04:26 PM


Bangladeshi security officials have arrested more than 70 people as part of a crackdown in a town where ethnic violence has left one person dead, a dozen wounded and several homes burned to the ground, police said Wednesday.

Bangladeshi troops and extra police were called in Tuesday to stop ethnic clashes between Bangalee settlers and an indigenous tribe involved in a decades-old land dispute in southeastern Khagrachhari town. All public gatherings were banned and a curfew was imposed in the area, which was once at the heart of a tribal insurgency.

Police said they had recovered the body of a Bangalee man who was shot in the head. A dozen people were wounded in the violence, and several homes on both sides were torched.

More than 70 people from both groups were arrested in overnight raids, a police official at Khagrachhari police station told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Ethnic tension in the region 110 miles (175 kilometers) southeast of the capital, Dhaka, is not new. Authorities resettled landless Bangalees there in the 1980s in a bid to end the tribal insurgency in the area, which borders Myanmar and India. The area was largely Buddhist before the settlers, who are mainly Muslim, arrived.

Tribal groups say many of their people have lost their land because of the settlement and faced brutal repression during years of military operations meant to quell the insurgency. The insurgents signed a peace treaty with the government in 1997, but tensions have continued.

Tuesday's unrest began when activists from the United People's Democratic Front _ which opposes the peace treaty _ blocked roads and waterways in the area to protest the deaths of two tribal people they say were killed last week by security officials during clashes with settlers.

The government has said it will investigate the deaths as well as a series of arsons that the tribal people blame on the settlers.