Madhupur Garh is an indigenous people-populated area in Bangladesh. The population of the indigenous people is gradually shrinking in this area. The indigenous people of this area are reported to be living a fearful life due to repeated threat, intimidation, and murder of their fellow members. In the last few years there are official reports of killings of at least five Garo persons but in all these cases the victim families are yet to get any judgment and the murderers are roaming around in broad day light. The family members of slain persons like Gadita Rema, Linthnath, Bihen Nokrek, Adhir Dopho and Sentu Nokrek are still crying out for a judgment but their appeals to the court remained frozen for ever.

The last victim of this series murder was Sentu Nokrek (22) of Telki village. He is known to be protesting offensive activities like teasing of indigenous girls and women, excessive drinking of liquor in the indigenous people's villages and misbehavior towards their women folks by some people from the dominant Bengali society. But his outspoken protest for the rights of his community finally cost his life.

The rogues kidnapped Sentu Nokrek and Bikul Hadima on 16 February. Though injured Bikul Hadima was somehow able to escape, Sentu Nokrek was shot at from point blank range. The murderers left his body in front of the BRAC office which is hardly fifty meters from the local police station. The main culprits involved in this murder case are yet to be caught.

Last year on 20th March, Gadita Rema (25) an indigenous women was killed while trying to rescue her younger sister from the captors and illegal occupants of their land. The whole family of Gadita was dependent on her for their livelihood. After her death, her parents, brother and sister are now living amidst uncertainty and her two daughters Lipu and Papia are left helpless. Though the police were able to arrest the murderers, they were released on bail without delay and now are threatening the family members of slain Gadita. Some among the indigenous people who tried to protest this murder are learnt to be harassed by implication in false cases.

Another youth of the same Telki village Linthnath Hadima was murdered on 24th December1999 while trying to protect the interest of the indigenous community by protesting a road construction project. He was killed on the eve of Christmas in broad day light in presence of a big crowd of the dominant society by influential persons like Ramzan, Hasmat and Akbar. They knocked him down by repeated blows with sharp knifes they had gathered with an objective to kill him and got it done with out any hindrance.

In the same year on 8th November Adhir Dopho of Satria village was brutally murdered. On that day, around 8 a.m. three poor indigenous women went to the Madupur National forest to collect roots and tubers. The forest guard tried to rape one of the isolated women (of the three) and hearing the screaming of the helpless women Adhir Dopo rushed to the spot to rescue the fellow women folk, leaving his work in the pineapple orchard nearby. The forest guard shot him on the spot and he died after four days in the hospital. His wife lodged complaints with the local police station. But to her surprised she found that the forest guard Abdhur Rahaman lodged another complaint of theft and attempt to murder in the same police station against her slain husband. So far no official investigation for this murder case has been carried out by the law enforcing authority.

Anthony Mashang, a local indigenous people leader, commented that due to lack of proper judgments the indigenous people are being murdered one after another. If it continues like this the Garo community will be abolished from this area very soon.

Bendic Mashang, chairman of the indigenous peoples' land rights preservation committee of Madupur said "We the indigenous people are too oppressed, persecuted and insulted here. We want a proper judgment of all the murder cases and the atrocities committed against our community."

(The above report is abridged from the report published in Prothom-alo, a Bengali daily from Dhaka. It was published on 11th March 2002)

The Garo people, who are of Tibeto-Burmese stock and prefer to call themselves Mandi, are living in the Madupur area of Bangldesh. As per 1991 census report of Bangladesh their population in the country is 64,280. Their population is gradually shrinking in Bangladesh due to low birth rate and silent migration to the adjacent Indian state of Meghalaya where they have one autonomous district council. The ongoing atrocities against the Garo/Mandi community in Bangladesh is believed to be a well calculated move by a section of the vested interest groups to push them out of the country and occupy their land property.