August 21, 2025, marks 500 days since the mass arrests of Bawm (BOM) Indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, carried out under the pretext of suppressing the Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF). Since April 2024, more than one hundred Bawm civilians, including women and children, have been held in prison without trial.
In the past three months alone, three young Bawm men have died in custody, reportedly due to the negligence of authorities and the denial of proper medical care. More than 150 people remain detained, among them stroke patients and others in critical health conditions.
Rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have condemned the crackdown as arbitrary and discriminatory, stressing that many were arrested simply for being Bawm. Families have described the arrests as collective punishment, with some fleeing to the forests or across borders to escape persecution.
The CHT Commission confirmed that at least one detainee, Lal Tleng, died in May 2025 while in custody, while others remain at risk. Community groups say thousands of Bawm families were displaced during the operation, and many have only recently begun returning home.
From within Bangladesh and abroad, voices of solidarity are rising in demand for the immediate release of innocent Bawm detainees, proper medical care for those still in custody, and an end to the ongoing repression of Indigenous peoples in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Bangladesh Feminist Archives 