Tribal leader to be released after two years in prison

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Bangladesh’s High Court on Wednesday ordered the release on bail of Ranglai Mro, leader of the remote Mru people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, after almost two years in prison.

Ranglai Mro was arrested in February 2007 and sentenced to 17 years in jail for possessing a weapon. It is thought that the charges were invented in retaliation for Ranglai’s protests against the eviction of his people from their land to make way for an army training centre.

Army officers tortured Ranglai while he was in custody. He was hospitalized, and doctors discovered he had suffered a heart attack. He was then sent back to jail without proper medical treatment.

Almost two years after his arrest, Ranglai was finally taken to a specialist coronary hospital in Dhaka on 1 January this year, when his condition became critical. However, he was kept in chains there, causing an outcry in Bangladesh. Doctors said the chains were hampering their ability to treat him.

His shackles were only removed after their use was reported in a national newspaper and Bangladesh’s National Human Rights Commission got involved.

Many Bangladeshi and international organizations, including Survival, have criticized the arrest and torture of Ranglai Mro.

The Mru are one of the eleven Jumma tribes of the Hill Tracts. Bangladesh’s new government, which won a landslide victory in the country’s December 29 elections, has promised to honour the 1997 peace accord with the Jumma peoples.