We are pledge-bound to maintain peace in CHT: PM

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said the government is pledge-bound to ensure peace across the country, including the Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT).

The premier said this during a message issued on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Peace Accord.

She greeted the countrymen, specially the people of the three hill districts and sought cooperation from all for full implementation of the CHT peace accord.

This peace accord brought an end to the long ethnic skirmishes in the CHT region and established the trend of peace and development there, she said.

The PM said the post-1975 undemocratic governments (after the assassination of Bangabandhu) had created divisions between the Bangalee and the hill people for their self-interest instead of maintaining social stability there.

Killings, tortures and injustice, grabbing of lands and wealth and misuse of the state resources had made the region more unstable, she added.

Hasina said that in 2001 the then BNP-Jamaat alliance government had opposed the historic peace agreement and wanted to destabilise the hilly region again. But their ill efforts went in vain, she added.

"We are pledge-bound to maintain peace across the country, including the CHT," she said during her speech.

The PM said CHT was no more a backward locality because of the timely steps taken by the government.

On December 2 in 1997, the historic CHT Peace Accord was signed without the mediation of any third party, with a view to stopping bloody conflicts in the CHT, the premier said.