Staff Correspondent

People of the Mro community need the right to live on their ancestral land maintaining their traditional lifestyle, not any five-star hotel, said speakers at a protest rally yesterday.

They demanded the cancellation of a project to establish a five-star hotel and amusement park at Bandarban’s Chandrapahar, popularly known as Chimbuk.

“Committee to save Mro land in Chimbuk hill” organised the programme at the capital’s Shahbagh, seeking attention of the prime minister.

According to them, a welfare organisation and Sikder Group are trying to grab about 1,000 acres of jhum land from Kapru Para Bazar to Jiban Nagar area, in the name of constructing a luxury hotel and tourist spot there.

The initiative, if implemented, will directly affect six villages of the Mro community and indirectly affect another 70-116 villages.

A group of Mro people, who have been directly affected by the project, came from Bandarban to protest.

Reng Young Mro translated the speech of one of their representatives, Mengchit Mro, who spoke in his mother tongue.

The group also played their traditional flutes and, protesting the project.

Different organisations, including Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples Forum (BIPF), Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), Bangladesh Somajtantrik Dal, Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) and Kapaeeng Foundation, expressed solidarity at the event.

Conducting the session, BIPF General Secretary Sanjeeb Drong said, “The plan to establish a five-star hotel on the ancestral land of Mro people is a sin and crime. We can’t make such imprudent plans just because we have money.”

“It is their ancestral and traditional land. Only they have the right to decide what they will do with it. They have a right to say ‘no’, and we must respect such democratic rights.”