The failure of Bangladesh’s interim government to control law and order in the country came into sharp focus this week with the eruption of ethnic violence in Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Southeast bordering Myanmar and India’s Northeast.

Atleast three indigenous tribes people were shot dead when the army opened fire on processions taken out by them to protest largescale arson and attacks on their properties by Muslim settlers from the plains. Five more dead bodies , all tribespeople, were reportedly found in local hospitals in the Hill Tracts where tribal guerrillas ran an armed campaign demanding extensive autonomy for two decades ( 1976-96) before an accord in 1997 brought them back to the national mainstream.

The settlers started attacking tribal villages in Khagracherri, Dighinala and Rangamati after one Muslim thief caught while stealing a motorcycle was beaten to death by a mixed mob of tribespeople and settlers earlier in the week.

Tribal groups have blamed the army for siding with the settlers and some videos circulating on the Net showed soldiers mercilessly beating up tribesmen while enforcing prohibitory orders in the three districts of Chittagong Hill Tracts.

The army has denied allegations of atrocities levelled against it and said they have only opened fire to control huge mobs turning riotous.

But the tribal groups in the Chittagong Hill Tracts complain of continuous settlement of Muslim settlers from the plains that undermines their demographic preponderance . The settlements were started by Bangladesh’s first........

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