Rumour mill on CHT violence

The tension and rumour over killing of a suspected motorcycle thief in mob beating at Dighinala of Khagrachhari  in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) has led to further violence involving clashes between the tribal people and Bengali people living in those areas. As it was coloured as a clash between hill people and the Bangalees, soon the rumour with attendant violence spread to Rangamati, another hill district further south and led to more deaths and injuries. The home and LGRD advisers visited affected areas on Saturday last, assured of forming a high-powered committee to investigate the cause of the violence and bringing those responsible for it to justice. But mob beating of suspected thieves or other kinds of anti-social elements have been going on for some time and it has increased in number and frequency following the change in government. In fact, the police became a target of public wrath following the fall of Hasina regime, because they would often open indiscriminate fire on processions of students protesting against the then-government leading to the deaths and injuries of hundreds of protesters. As a result, they (the police) were on the run and demoralised. This is the main reason for the breakdown of law and order across the country in the wake of Hasina government's fall. Rise in mob violence including mobs taking law into their own hands has been the direct result of this overall failure of law and order in the country. Khagrachhari or Rangamati is not on another planet. Similar incidents of mob violence can also happen there. What happened at Dighinala in Khagrachhari is no doubt reprehensible and those behind beating a person to death just on suspicion of the victim's being a thief must face justice. Similarly, those behind the violent incidents that followed causing further deaths should also be brought to justice.

 But unlike in other parts of the of the country, the incidents, if those involve hill and non-hill people, may take unexpected turns to create nationwide unrest, sometimes those may spill over to the international arena. In this era of digital disinformation  and fake news, there is every possibility of making a mountain out of a molehill over these issues. Such attempts have already been made centring around the Khagrachhari incident. Rumor Scanner, a fact-checking platform, has meanwhile found out how disinformation and rumour are circulating on the social media where half-truths as well as total lies using pictures and video-clips that have no connection with the recently happened Khagrachhari incident are doing the rounds. In one such picture on the social media, a civilian carrying arms was seen with the army purportedly in connection with the Khaagrachhari or Rangamati violence. The Rumor Scanner found out that the picture's origin was Rangpur central jail. The army personnel had gone there to quell turmoil in the prison on August 16. And the person in civilian dress carrying arms, according to the senior jailor of the Rangpur jail, is a prison guard of the jail.

Rumor Scanner found the truth through analysis of the related video-clips. But though the truth has now come out, the untruth has already done its intended damage.

Many who do not believe in Bangladesh or at least not the political changes that took place recently, are also out to fish in troubled waters. The controversial, feminist   Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasrin, now in exile, for instance, did not miss the opportunity to use Khagrachhari incident to spread religious hatred. She posted the picture of a burnt idol as related to the Khagrachhari violence on her X-handle. The same picture was used by another facebook page to pass it for an imagined religious violence in Rangamati.  Rumor Scanner, through its research has unveiled the truth behind that picture and which has no connection with the latest happenings of the hill districts.

Unfortunately, prejudiced minds are no respecter of truth and that is more so when social tensions run high. So, the rumourmongers with an axe to grind have been able to strike fear in the minds of the tribal people as well as members of the Bengali community living in the hills. Given the history of tribal insurgencies in the region, any spark has the potential to start a conflagration. In this connection, two video clips on armed hill people crossing a road was posted on the facebook  recently. It was said that those videos were from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Clearly, the objective of those who posted those videos was to fan fear in public mind that some tribal insurgency in the CHT region is brewing. But the truth is, those video clips had no relation to Bangladesh, far less the CHT. Actually, those are from the Philippines. Similarly, some other videos were from Assam of India, but some vested interests wanted those to be propagated as related to the recent incidents of Khagrachhari or Rangamati. 

Such disinformation campaigns are being carried out by those who do not want to see stability in Bangladesh. It is commendable that a Bangladeshi fact-checker platform has come forward to get to the root of the fake information circulating on the social media. But the government need not depend entirely on private agencies to debunk disinformation campaign. It should have its own fact-checking outfit. The past government is learnt to have built a powerful surveillance regime with the help of expensive IT resources and systems. The setup is already there. The present interim government with available IT resources should build a strong platform of its own to fight disinformation campaigns being launched against the country from time to time and provide the people with the correct picture of controversial issues.

The troublemakers are not going to stop. Today, it is Khagrachhari violence, tomorrow, it will be another.  But the nation should be on the alert to face such challenges to its stability.

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