Between May 1 and May 7, 1986, the Bangladesh Army launched a coordinated military campaign in the Matiranga area of Khagrachari district in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). The main targets: Tripura/Jumma Indigenous villagers, accused without evidence of supporting the Shanti Bahini, the armed resistance group advocating for Indigenous rights and autonomy in the CHT.
As soldiers moved in, Tripura villagers from several paras, including Sarveswar Para and Manudas Para, were forced to flee into the deep jungle. Their only option for survival was to head toward the Indian border. But even then, they were not safe.
On May 18 and 19, in a narrow jungle pass between Comillatila and Taidong, a group of over 200 Tripura refugees, mostly unarmed men, women, children, and elderly was cornered and brutally gunned down by the Bangladesh Army. Earlier, between May 1 and 7, at least 60 more Tripura civilians had already been killed in raids, beatings, and executions.
These were not isolated excesses. The Matiranga Massacre was part of a broader strategy of ethnic cleansing pursued by the state throughout the 1980s to forcibly assimilate Indigenous communities, displace them from their ancestral lands, and make room for military settlements and Bengali settlers in the CHT. Under the pretense of “anti-insurgency operations,” entire villages were burned, women were raped, and thousands were forced into exile.
The massacre has never been acknowledged by the state. No soldier has been held accountable. The victims’ names are not in textbooks. This silence is not accidental, it is policy.
For Indigenous peoples in Bangladesh, justice has always been postponed, denied, or erased.
Matiranga 1986 was a massacre. It was a crime. And it must not be forgotten.
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