Super Jyoti Chakma released on bail

Super Jyoti Chakma, organising secretary of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Democratic Youth Forum, who was arrested by Lakshmichari army in Khagrachari yesterday, has been released on bail today.

The Khagrachari district magistrate granted him bail after he was produced before the court.

After the release, Super Jyoti Chakma told the Human Rights Monitoring Cell of the UPDF that he was blindfolded and tortured by a Captain at the Lakshmichari Army Zone headquarter and that he was feeling strong pain in the legs.

“An army commander, who might be of the rank of a captain, quizzed and beat me up, but I don’t know his name as he had taken his name badge off his uniform before he came to me.” he said, adding he was at first picked up by members of the army security intelligence from Lakshmichari bazzar at about 4:45 p.m.

He said the commander asked him why he had come home, whether he contacted local UPDF leader Ratan Basu Marma and what the UPDF is fighting for. “The commander told me that they had to keep watch on educated young boys like me and that we are on their target list” said Super Jyoti Chakma.

He said the captain also threatened to kill him, but he felt a bit lucky as the most dreaded commander Hafizur was down with fever at the time. “Otherwise, I would have been dead meat” he said and added that the army hit him in the legs.

At the end of the interrogation the captain asked him if he had anything to say. “I said you (the army) should have diverted all your means and energy towards crushing the Islamist militants instead of running after UPDF and torturing innocent people like me; the JMB is blowing up courts and threatening to destroy the state and yet you are doing nothing” recalled Super Jyoti.

The army handed him over to the Lakshmichari police at around 8:30 p.m. and he was entangled with a case filed previously with Khagrachari police station against some UPDF activists. He did not know of the case until today. No case has been filed with Lakshmichari police station, although the army threatened to do so.

He was shifted to Khagrachari today early in the morning and was produced before the magistrate’s court at 1 p.m. A UPDF-appointed lawyer moved bail petition on his behalf and the court granted bail without much ado.

Super Jyoti Chakma has been politically active for many years. Because of his involvement in UPDF politics his family members became targets of both the armed members of Jana Samhati Samiti and the Bangladesh Army. Last year his father Gul Moni Chakma was kidnapped by a JSS-sponsored armed group. He was released only when he had agreed to persuade Super Jyoti Chakma to shake off all ties with UPDF.

Prepared by Press Section, Publications and Publicity Department, United People's Democratic Front (UPDF), December 05, 2005, Dhaka.