C T Online Desk: The Bangladesh government informed the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances that Hill Women’s Federation organising secretary Kalpana Chakma was still missing after her abduction in Baghaichhari of Rangamati on June 12, 1996.
The government by June 2022 submitted its updated report about 76 cases of disappearance which were reported to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights over the years.
The UN WGEID informed the government about the case of Kalpana Chakma citing their source.
‘Source states that subject’s abduction was planned to frighten and discourage the inhabitants of Baghaichari from voting for the Pahari Gana Parishad (Hill Peoples’ Council) backed candidate,’ it said.
The Bangladesh government in their report informed the UN body that a case was recorded at Baghaichhari police station dated June 12, 1996 on charge of kidnapping or abducting Kalpana Chakma in order to murder her.
The government also said that the police had submitted the final report true dated September 7, 2016 to the court but the complainant had refused the police report. The case is under trial, the report stated.
Kalpana’s family have alleged that none of the investigating officers interrogated the suspects — then army Lieutenant Ferdous Kaisar Khan, who retired from the service, Village Defence Party member Nurul Huq and police constable Saleh Ahmed.
On August 12, 2022, the Working Group in its report stated that it urged the Bangladesh authorities to ‘redouble’ efforts to provide additional information, including replying to its related general allegation transmitted, with a view to clarifying all outstanding cases.
Kalpana’s brother Kalindi Kumar Chakma, 52, who filed the case with the Baghaichhari police station after her disappearance, told New Age on Sunday that they appeared before the court on the scheduled date but there was no hearing and after a while the court set new date.
‘It is a case in the name only,’ he lamented.
He alleged that suspects Nurul Haque and Saleh Ahmed were seen in the locality and were moving freely.
The complainant rejected the police report and made an appeal to the court on October 19, 2016 for a further investigation into the case.
The Rangamati Chief Judicial Magistrate Court was yet to hear the application filed by Kalindi for a further investigation in the past seven years.
Rangamati additional public prosecutor Mihir Baran Chakma on Saturday said that there was no progress in the case.
Rangamati police superintendent Mir Abu Touhid on Saturday said that they had not received further court order to launch any investigation into it.
Kalpana Chakma, 23, was allegedly abducted from her house in Baghaichhari on June 12, 1986 several hours before the seventh national election. She was campaigning for independent candidate Bijoy Ketan Chakma, then a senior presidium member of the Pahari Gana Parishad backed by all hill people organisations.
