Indigenous people's rights must for dev

To develop the country, the state must ensure human and cultural rights of indigenous communities, speakers said at a seminar yesterday.
The government should resolve problems of the communities and hold dialogues with them, they added.
Bangladesh Adivasi Forum organised the seminar titled “Adivasider Odhikar, Manobadhikar" in Cirdap auditorium in the capital marking International Human Rights Day.
National Human Rights Commission Chairman Mizanur Rahman said no country can move forward with flourishing democracy if any community is deprived of its human rights. “It is the duty of the state to protect each community's ethnic, cultural and religious rights,” he said over phone as he could not attend the programme.
Workers Party of Bangladesh President Rashed Khan Menon, who also could not attend due to the opposition's road blockade, said over phone that the state must remove worries of indigenous communities concerning implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord. Prof Mesbah Kamal of Dhaka University's history department also spoke among others.