Editorial
It should be a wake-up call
Long-festering issues of hill districts need early resolution
Local inhabitants, the administration and the police have been taken by surprise at the scale of Saturday's violence at Rangamati town over a trifling incident of fisticuff between a tribal and a Bengali student of the local government college.
Even leaders of indigenous and Bengali communities as well as those of the ruling and opposition political parties have been baffled by the sudden eruption of the violence.
In the aftermath, normal life came to a standstill for the last three days amidst clamping of section 144 and deployment of armed forces to restore order in the town.
A semblance of peace and normality has returned. The challenge is to build up on the present ambience marked by peace marches.
The police are still in the dark about the root cause of this widespread violence. But the common belief among all sections of people is that some quarters out to fish in the troubled waters have been behind this riot.
The inability of either the administration, or community leaders or the political quarters to foresee such a sudden eruption of violence only betrays their deplorable lack of understanding and hence their grip over the situation in the area.
There is no room for complacency, as no one could
be identified and arrested so far in connection with
the trouble.
The government will have to pay full attention to the incident, take lesson from it and address it wholeheartedly In place of an adhocist approach to the problems, it will have to concentrate on mitigating those on a
long-term basis.
Major issues militating against restoring hill people's trust are settling their land-related problems and implementing Parbattya Chattagram peace accord. The imperative is to address them in earnest.
For now what is most urgent is to restore trust between the indigenous people and Bengali settlers and remain on guard against any untoward development in the area.
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