On June 12, 1996, Jumma rights activist, Feminist, and leader of Hill Women’s Federation of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Kalpana Chakma was kidnapped in middle of night. Jumma activists charged that the operation was led by Lieutenant Ferdous, commander of Kojoichari Army camp, (currently Major Ferdous, commander of Laxmichari Army camp, Baghaichari Thana). An international hue & cry ensued, with appeals by Amnesty International and many others. The Army attempted a cover-up.

Jumma activists called strikes in the hills, and Bengali settlers attacked Jumma rallies. Four Jumma were killed by Bengalis in ensuing clashes, but even after a manhunt her body was never found. On the 12th anniversary of her disappearance, Jumma & Bengali activists are holding a series of events, discussions, publications, newspaper articles to bring attention to the case. They vow to use this anniversary to continue the campaign for full rights of the Jumma people of CHT

1. Mithun Chakma: Make Inquiry Report Public
2. New Age/12th Anniversary Report: Read Online or Download
3. Samari Chakma: Word Doc or PDF (Bangla)
4. Kabita Chakma: Word Doc or PDF(Bangla)
5. Jummonet: Kalpana Chakma
6. Drishtipat: CHT History Archive
7. Shaher Zaidi: The Vanishing
8. Audity Falguni: A Decade since Kalpana Chakma’s Abduction

[an edited version of this op-ed appeared in DAILY STAR, June 13, 2008. Here we present the original article]
The Vanishing
by Shaher Zaidi

Headlines from our tragic past and grim future: The Daily Star, 1 July, 1996: DU students urge govt. to rescue Kalpana Chakma; 5 July: Abduction of Kalpana Chakma: Home Ministry probe demanded; The Independent, 15 July: 12 human rights bodies call to rescue Kalpana Chakma; Bhorer Kagoj: 6 July: It is a mystery that there is no govt. effort to rescue Kalpana; Janakantha: 21 July: Rescue Kalpana; Bhorer Kagoj: 23 July: Demands for discussion on Kalpana in Parliament; Sangbad: 19 August: Kalpana’s mother: HR Commission lying, I want my daughter back.

June 12, 1996. I want my daughter back. This many years later, I still wonder why Kalpana’s widowed mother opened the door. Did she have a choice? Is it ever an option for a Jumma in Chittagong Hill Tracts to refuse to open the door when guns, voices, and search lights are on the other side.

Pehaps Badhuni Chakma didn’t have time for any calculations. She got out of bed, opened the door, fear made her body rigid. Perhaps she had expected this her whole life. Born Jumma, born Pahari, born Chakma. In this country, in this time, it reminds me of something I read elsewhere: “Born Muslim, Born Black”. In every country, there is some lesser life waiting for someone.

Frantz Fanon wrote about the wretched of the earth and set a generation’s mind on fire. He failed to see that the same wretched, after rising and overthrowing the colonial structures, would set about replicating that familiar model of oppression, domination, marginalization. If Fanon had lived, who would he fight for now?

The rest of that night I remember from all the news reports of that time. Hill Women’s Federation leader, Feminist activist and campaigner for autonomy of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Kalpana Chakma, dragged out of her room. Witnesses all saw who the abductors were, but after a decade we still work with euphemisms. Even here, even in print.

“Six or seven security personnel in plainclothes, believed to be from Ugalchari army camp, are reported to have entered the home of Kalpana Chakma in New Lallyaghona village, Rangamati district in the early hours of 12 June. Kalpana Chakma and two of her brothers were forcibly taken from their home, blindfolded and with their hands tied.” [Amnesty International]. In the subsequent investigation by Ain Salish Kendra, it was found that Khudiram and Kalindi Chakma managed to escape when security personnel fired at them. But Kalpana Chakma was the real target. The armed kidnappers did not let her escape. Ever.

Gone, without a trace. We can make you vanish. In the twinkling of an eye.

Perhaps to the end of days Kalindi Chakma will be haunted by those moments as he ran “They shot at me and when I ran I could hear Kalpana screaming out ‘Dah Dah Mare Baja (brother, brother, save me!).”

Dah Dah Mare Baja.

Kalpana Chakma’s disappearance ignited smoldering anger over three decades of Bengali led, government supported, ethnic cleansing in Chittagong Hill Tracts. Jumma activists called a general strike in the hills. Protests spread to Dhaka, with hunger strikes in front of the press club. In an astounding display of power dynamics, Bengali settlers attacked protesters and shot dead 16-year old Rupon Chakma. As tensions grew, Bangalis hacked to death Sukesh Chakma, Monotosh Chakma and Samar Chakma on their way to Baghaichari bazaar to join the rallies. Reminding all of you, once again, that you live because we allow you to.

The rest of the story is the familiar tragedy script of this country. The government and the Army waged an extensive cover up, wiping out all traces of the abductors. I heard recently that the culprits are doing well, rising further ahead in careers, and wielding tremendous power in CHT. Kalpana of course was never found.

Mithun Chakma, General Secretary of Democratic Youth Forum wrote “Dear readers, please don’t mistake it for a Shakespearean tragedy. It’s real life in Chittagong Hill Tracts.”

Twelve years later, awareness of our historic colonial relation with the hills has spread to a much larger portion of the Bengali population, especially the post-1981 generation. Bengalis who support the Jumma people’s demands for a right to fair existence in CHT call themselves “anti-occupation activists”. After this many years, what else can we call our ongoing armed occupation of the region? What other metaphor comes to mind when we see Bengalis executing an overt Settler policy?

Kalpana Chakma has vanished without a trace. On this anniversary, can we finally call for an end to the occupation? All our pride in koshtarjito shadhinota means little while we remain complicit in the choking of shadhinota of another people.

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A Decade since Kalpana Chakma’s Abduction
Audity Falguni

Death is something of utmost loss and melancholy never to be
fulfilled. We cry for our beloved ones’ departure and then the grief
gets subdued in course of time. But, what happens when somebody is
simply missing over the years with no trace out?

‘Kalpana Chakma, our beloved sisterly comrade was kidnapped and
abducted by some army personnel 12 years ago. The government has
failed to properly probe into the matter, bring the wrongdoers under
the book or even publish the inquiry commission report,’ said Dipayan
Chakma, editor of Maoroom, a little magazine on the holistic issue of
indigenous peoples’ movements and struggle for rights in Bangladesh.

‘Protesting Kalpana’s sudden abduction as a bolt from the blue, two
fifteen years’ old boys Rupan Chakma and Manotosh Chakma embraced
martyrdom on 28 June1996. They were shot down by local army officials
while joining in a protest in Baghaichari on 28 June organized by
Pahari Chattra Parisad (PCP). Moreover, two other adolescent boys of
sixteen Samar Bijoy Chakma and Sukesh Chakma have been missing since
the day of demonstration on 28 June 1996 in Baghaichari. But, who can
shake this state machinery in Rip Van Winkle’s sleep to rise into the
conscience of humanity?’ Dipayan asked as he was organizing the human
chain at Fine Arts Institute premises of Dhaka University on Thursday
12 June morning to mark the 12th anniversary of Kalpana Chakma’s
missing out.

12 Years Ago: The Way Kalpana Chakma Was Abducted

On the night of 11th June 1996, Kalpana Chakma, the organizing
secretary of Hill Women’s Federation was abducted by security
personnel according to eye-witness account. Ever since then the Hill
Women’s Federation have been demanding investigation into the case and
punishment for the culprits. An Inquiry Commission was set by the
government to make necessary investigation. But, till now, the
contents of this report have not been officially published nor any
measures have been taken to punish the culprits.

Kalpana, a young woman of 23 years of age, hailed from a lush green
hilly village New Laillaghona of remote Baghaichari region in the
Chittagong Hill Tracts. She emerged as a stern voice of rights for
hill people and particularly hill women within a very tender age.
Kalpana Chakmar Diary, the diary of Kalpana Chakma, edited by Hill
Women’s Federation and published by Shrabon on 12 June 2001 reveals
the dedicated self-learning and self-exploration of Kalpana Chakma on
the question of gender disparity in hill and plains as well as the
refusal of human dignity to the indigenous people of Chittagong Hill
Tracts by majority Bengali community. In pages after pages Kalpana
astonishes us with her preparation to fight a life’s battle for
self-autonomy and recognition of distinct characteristics of hill
people. She was radical on question of Marxism and Capitalist state
machinery, rebel against the excesses of army camps in the hills and a
fire-brand supporter of gender equality, whether it is within the
terms of Jumma economy and means of production or a high-tech
bourgeoisie society. It is really surprising that when hundreds of
young women in Dhaka today are running after only show-biz and
entertaining glamour industry despite a so-called university degree,
Kalpana quotes in her diary excerpts from Nazrul, Aristotle, Rokeya,
Nelson Mandela, Taslima Nasrin, different statistics on gender
disparity in Fifth Year’s Development Plan of GOB or the land
measurement system in Chittagong Hill Tracts, Iraq-America relation…a
wide variety of topics ranging from philosophy to contemporary world
politics, literature and feminism. Such was the process of her
self-education living in a distant peripheral area of the hills.

On the fateful midnight of 11th June 1996, on the eve of the elections
of June 12, Kalpana Chakma, central Organizing Secretary of Hill
Women’s Federation was abducted from her home in New Laillaghona
village of Baghaichari. She was a first year graduate student of
Baghaichari College. She and her two brothers lived together with her
mother and sister-in-law in the not-two-well-off neighborhood of New
Laillaghona village. Her brothers Kalindikumar alias Kalicharan (32)
and Lalbihari Chakma alias Khudiram (26) were farmers who could not
afford an education for themselves, but wanted their only sister to
get education.

Kalpana’s household was fast asleep, when a host of men encircled the
house and started calling out. These men broke open the bolt made up
of bamboo. They gathered everyone into the drawing room and forbade
them to put the light on. They started to ask names and on calling on
Kalpana’s younger brother Lalbihari. They dragged him outside. They
announced that he had to be taken to the ‘Boss (Sir).’ While they were
repeatedly flashing a torch on his face to identify him, Lalbihari
recognized some of the men. The men he recognized were Lt. Ferdous
(Kojoichari Camp Commander, 17 East Bengal regiment) wearing an army
vest, Village Defense Party (VDP) Platoon Commander Nurul Huq and VDP
Saleh Ahmed. It should be noted that Kalpana dared to debate with Lt.
Ferdous some days ago protesting the arson attack on some hill men’s
house by Bengali settlers. In response, Lt. Ferdous along with some
men visited Kalpana’s house on mid-April threatening against her
political activities in support of the hill people.

Lt. Ferdous then ordered Khudiram to be taken to the water’s edge
about 150 yards from Kalpana’s house. After being taken there, he was
blindfolded and his hands tied. After 10 to 15 minutes later, Kalpana
and her elder brother Kalicharan was brought to the same place.
Kalicharan’s eyes were blindfolded at that time. Kalpana was holding
his hand. They were taken further west towards a water reservoir.
Khudiram was told to go knee into the water. Someone caught hold of
his hand and another person ordered to shoot. On hearing this,
Khudiram, released his bound hand and jumped into the water. Although
guns were fired, Khudiram, managed to escape. When Kalicharan heard
the shot, he thought his brother to be dead. So he left Kalpana and
made a dash for his life. Another shot was fired and he could hear
Kalpana crying out: Dada! Dada! (Brother! Brother!)
That was the last voice of Kalpana soon fading out into the air.

The next story of state denial of least responsibility or
accountability for this horrendous incident is known to all of us.
Kalpana’s brothers got a harsh treatment from Lt. Ferdous the
following morning and they were not even allowed to frame a FIR with
all the true information. Lt. Ferdous was later transferred and even
promoted. Initially after the incident, the army also framed a ‘love
story’ between Lt. Ferdous and Kalpana Chakma. Later the authority
said that Kalpana fled over the Tripura border as a pawn of Shanti
Bahini to create sensation. That fiction also did not come true. The
probe report is yet to be published. The fifteen year old dead boy
Rupan Chakma’s mother cried to certain human rights activists from
Dhaka saying, ‘I have not got my son’s body. Please, return me his
bones so that I can cremate him per Buddhist belief!’ That
heart-rending universal appeal of a mother has not been even satisfied
down today.

In 1990, information from one refugee camp in Tripura, India indicated
that one in every 10 female in the camp has been a rape victim in the
CHT. Over 94% of the alleged cases of rape of Jumma women between 1991
and 1993 were by ‘security forces.’ Of these rape allegations, over
40% of the victims were women under 18. In this volatile situation of
the CHT, the rule of law no longer operates. These data should be more
horrifying to the majority Bengali community particularly because
around 2,00,000 women were reported to be raped by the Pakistani army
in our Liberation War of 1971. How can our men repeat the same
behavior to women of the same state because of certain difference in
ethnicity, religion and language?

‘We want to know the trace of Kalpana Chakma…whether she is still
alive or dead. We know the inquiry commission report to be published.
We demand the trace of two missing boys who protested Kalpana’s
abduction and the skull or bones of two dead boys to be returned to
their bereaved mothers,’ demanded the young hill men and women of the
human chain on last Thursday to mark a decade of inertia since Kalpana
Chakma’s abduction.

References:
1) Kalpana Chakmar Diary, edited by Hill Women’s Federation,
published by Shrabon on June 2001.
2) Where is Kalpana Chakma? A four-year-old Question with No answers
by Meghna Guhathakurta, published in Kalpana Chakmar Diary.