As Al Qaeda-connected ultra-Islamist Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) failed to jeopardize January 7 general elections through subversive and terrorist acts while its “India Out” movement, which was launched with the notorious agenda of gaining mass-support against India and Indian products and later use such forces in unseating ruling Awami League government from power – a frustrated BNP, at the direct instruction of its “high-command” chalked-out a fresher plot of destabilizing Chittagong Hill Tracts area by mobilizing members of Kuki-Chin National Front (KCNF) in numerous forms of terrorist activities, including robbery and abduction. It may be mentioned here that several leaders of BNP are having decades-old relations with KCNF kingpin Nathan Bom.
Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF), also known as Bom Party or Bawm Party, is a banned ethno-nationalist and separatist organization in Bangladesh based in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Established by Nathan Bom in 2017, KNF aims to establish a separate autonomous state for Bawm people with nine upazilas of Rangamati and Bandarban district.
Kuki-Chin National Front was established in 2017 by members of the Bawm people in Bangladesh with two thousand personnel. The Bawm community is mostly Christian and accuses the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti of discrimination. The founding president of the Kuki-Chin National Front is Nathan Bom, a graduate of fine arts from the University of Dhaka. He was previously involved with the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti’s student wing, the Pahari Chhatra Parishad, and founded the Kuki-Chin National Development Organization in 2008 and renamed it to Kuki-Chin National Volunteers. The Kuki-Chin National Volunteers would become the Kuki-Chin National Front. Vanchun Lian master, a teacher of the government primary school, is the chief of staff of the Kuki-Chin National Front.
According to Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies, Kuki-Chin National Front has received weapons from the Kachin State of Myanmar, and also has ties with the Karen rebels. Its armed wing is the Kuki-Chin National Army.
In June 2022, the Kuki-Chin National Front attacked a camp of Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti killing three in Belaichhari Upazila, Rangamati District. In October, tourists were sent back from Bandarban District in preparation of an operation by the Bangladesh Army and other security forces against the Kuki-Chin National Front. In November 2022, Bangladesh Army launched a drive against Kuki-Chin National Front which saw 270 Kuki people seek refuge in Mizoram of India.
In February 2023, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested 17 personnel of Jama’atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya (JAFHS) and three members of Kuki-Chin National Front after a daylong gunfight. They also recovered AK-22 rifles among other weapons and bomb making equipment. Jama’atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya paid BDT 1.7 million to Kuki-Chin National Front for weapons. By January 2023, 14 members of the Kuki-Chin National Front were detained.
According to a credible source, a confidante of BNP’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman and a regular visitor at infamous Hawa Bhaban succeeded in hiding his affiliations with BNP and Tarique Rahman and managed permission for publishing a vernacular journal mainly covering reports related to Chittagong Hill Tracts. He reportedly also succeeded in attaining confidence of a number of intelligence agencies in the country, wherefrom he has been getting financial support for running his newspaper as well as a YouTube channel.
Media reports said, this confidante of Tarique Rahman was openly boasting of maintaining connections with several military officers as well as key figures in the intelligence agencies, while he even went further by claiming to be a “teacher” of serving senior officers – including Brigadier Generals.
For the past several years, under the garb of gathering information from his publication, this BNP man has appointed dozens of “correspondents” and “sources” in Hill Tract areas, while he proclaims to be having “solid sources” within various militancy and terrorist entities including Kuki-Chin National Front. He even claimed to have established “friendly relations” with KCNF kingpin Nathan Bom.
Following the January 7 general elections, Tarique Rahman instructed his confidante – the “newspaper editor” to meet Nathan Bom and discuss plots of creating a reign of terror in the Hill Tract areas through robbery, abduction and murders. Accordingly, the “newspaper editor” began coordinating with Nathan Bom and through his newspaper’s so-called correspondents, started providing vital information on existing financial institutions as well as other targets in the locality. Undercover informants were deployed to collect information on movement and availability of cash, existing security arrangements and other details, which KCNF terrorists are using for ongoing bank robberies.
