“It has been 614 days since I last saw my daughter outside prison walls,” Zing Nun Mawi Bawm said on December 12th 2025, her eyes welling with tears. “The prison ruined her future.”
On April 4th 2024, nineteen-year-old Tina Lal Ruat Fel Bawm returned from the capital to her hometown in Bandarban, Chattogram, during a school break. She was a student at St. Joseph High School and College in Savar, Dhaka. Her homecoming was short-lived.
Just four days after her arrival, her neighbourhood of Bethel Para in Bandarban was swept by a joint forces operation led by the army. The other units were the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), and the police.
“She had come home for the holidays. Who could have imagined that this visit would shatter our lives?,” Zing Nun Mawi lamented. Tina was taken into custody alongside dozens of her neighbours. That day, a total of 49 people, including 18 women, were detained from Bethel Para. For Tina, she was uprooted from her home during a school holiday and cast into an overcrowded prison cell. Her freedom had come to an abrupt, indefinite end.
This was not an isolated incident rather a window into a wider crisis of displacement and fear gripping the Bawm community. Beyond the prison walls, the army’s campaign has resulted in extrajudicial killings and a migratory shift that threatens the very survival of the 11,000-member Bawm community.
More than one-third of the population has now fled to refugee camps in neighboring India, according to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission and International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA). They were driven by a combination of insurgent violence and a state-led lockdown of ancestral villages. For those who remain, daily life is governed by a strict army permit system, where even the sale of vegetables, movement between neighborhoods or medical appointments require written authorization from army commanders.
The exodus
While Tina languishes in a prison cell, others have been forced to choose between the risk of detention and the perils of being cast into the wilderness. “In my country, I had a home. I had my cattle. Here, I have nothing,” said a despondent Laltoyar Bawm. The former resident of Thingdolte Tlang Para in Bandarban is currently seeking refuge at the Parva-III camp in Mizoram. Laltoyar fled his home in November 2022, seeking safety for his wife and son, when conflict erupted between the KNF — a separatist organisation advocating for the autonomy of the Kuki-Chin people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts — and the Bangladesh Army.
A journalist working for Netra News visited Parva-III earlier this year, and interviewed Laltoyar Bawm on April 1st, “There are 41 families in this camp, including my own. We are provided two meals a day, but only upon presenting our refugee cards. I long to return to my country, but I cannot find the courage. I am caught between the KNF on one side and army operations on the other.”
Driven by fear of conflict, army crackdowns, and violence, he is among the one-third of the Christian minority Bawm community — whose total population is a mere 11,000 — who have been forced to migrate, to save their lives. They have taken shelter as refugees in camps in Mizoram, India.
The journey from Thingdolte Tlang Para, Bangladesh to Parva-III, Mizoram, India was a trial of endurance for Laltoyar Bawm and his family. They navigated a perilous migration route through the region’s most rugged and remote swathes of land.
Laltoyar’s trek began with a full day’s hike from Thingdawl Te Para through dense, uninhabited wilderness, to reach Taung Prai Hill. From there, they slipped across the border into Myanmar’s Chin State, taking advantage of the absence of barbed-wire fencing. An additional two days of walking through Chin State brought them to the border of Lawngtlai District in Mizoram, concluding their journey at Parva-III.
Netra News identified seven Bawm villages that have experienced a mass exodus due to the army crackdown: Thingdolte Tlang Para , Silopy Para, Cheihlchiang Para, Fainung Para, Tamlao Para, Luan Mual Para, and Sippi Para (located in Rowangchhari).
According to official statistics from the Mizoram Home Department, as of June 2025, over 2,370 Bangladeshi Bawm individuals from the Chittagong Hill Tracts have been staying in Mizoram for more than two years. Designated as refugees by the Mizoram state government, they are currently sheltered in 12 camps spread across the state’s 11 districts. Netra News independently geolocated them near the 318 km unfenced border Mizoram shares with Bangladesh, to the south-east of the country: Chamdur Project, Maotlang, Bhuntlang, Hmunnuam, Hmawngbhu, Hruitezawl, Parva III, Mannuyam, Maubuang, Ruitezual, Thenzawl and Vathuampui.
As members of the Bawm clan, these refugees from Bangladesh are ethnic Mizos, bound to their counterparts across the border by a shared history and ancient kinship.
The exodus of the Bawm community began in November 2022, when refugees first arrived at Chamdur ‘P’ village in the Lawngtlai district. Over the following two years, residents from Kersetlang, Pankhiang, and other Bawm villages in Bandarban fled their homes to seek shelter in Mizoram villages like Hruitezawl and Tuithumhnar. These families wanted to survive the escalating conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. According to the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), more than 4,000 members of the Bawm community were displaced from their ancestral lands following the joint forces crackdown against the KNF.
An eyewitness account
“It was 5:00 am. An order was coming through a megaphone. It was from the army: We need to leave our homes and gather at a single point,” Lal Mun San Bawm, a resident of the village, recalled the fateful April 8th. Lal Mun is the karbari of Bethel Para — a village chieftain.
Lal Mun added, “A line formed. It was an assembly of men, women, teenage girls, and youth. The small children tightly held their parents’ hands, while the infants remained in their mothers’ arms.”
Tina, arrested on April 8th, is just one of eight Bawm women currently in custody. For a staggering one year and nine months, these indigenous women have been detained without trial. This crackdown came on the heels of the robbery of two banks and hostage-taking of a bank manager by the armed group Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) on April 4th 2024.
Lal Mun further said, “The army officers scanned our faces, eventually singling out the younger men and women from the crowd. One by one, those chosen were ordered to get into the police vans and taken toward Bandarban Sadar.”
Lal Mun’s account is not uncommon. Through a comprehensive analysis of army statements, legal filings, police reports, and first-hand testimony from victims’ families and eyewitnesses, Netra News has uncovered a pattern of systemic raids and mass arrests targeting Bawm neighbourhoods in Bandarban. Often conducted under the cover of darkness or in the early hours of the day, these joint forces operations led by the army have become commonplace in the region.
The faces behind the bars
Netra News identified the eight indigenous women behind the prison walls: Tina Lal Ruat fel Bawm, Jesy Zingjinho Par Bawm, Lal Tlanh Kim Bawm, Partha Zual Bawm, Melory Bawm, Akim Bawm, Lal Ring To Loyang Bawm and Nem Pem Bawm. Each name represents a life derailed.
The academic journeys of nineteen-year-old students Tina and Partha, twenty-year-old Jesy, and twenty-two-year-old Lal Rin have stalled at the hands of state action based on suspicion sans evidence.
Lal Tlanh, a 30 year-old NGO worker awaiting the final results of her BSS degree, now stands accused of being a criminal. The lives of Akim and Nem Pem have similarly been interrupted by arbitrary detention. The absence of 26 year-old Melory, who is the primary caregiver of her family, is keenly felt. Her dependents have been plunged into a daily struggle for survival.
After being taken from their home, the women were processed at Ruma Thana before being transferred to Bandarban Sadar Thana. Their names were included in four separate cases following the alleged bank robbery and weapon looting incidents. Later bail applications were denied in court, and they were placed in custody for questioning. Following the remand period, the detainees were moved to the prison.
Since their arrest, Tina, Melory, and Jessy have been held at the Bandarban District Jail. Other Bawm women have been incarcerated in Chattogram Central Jail, which is notorious for being the second most overcrowded prison in the country. While the facility is designed to house 2,249 people, it is currently averaging more than 6,000 inmates daily — meaning it is operating at nearly 300% capacity.
Netra News has identified a total of 24 Bawm women who were arrested between April 8th and May 17th 2024, following the bank robberies. They were apprehended in joint operations led by the army, spanning multiple locations including Simtalanping Para, Bethel Para, Arthah Para, Baklai Para, Shajahan Para, Eden Para, Munlai Para, Basatolang Para, and Pankhiyang Para in Bandarban. Among them all had been released except eight.
The legal battleground
The detainees face charges under a combination of the Special Powers Act, the Arms Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the Penal Code. However, they have no prior criminal history or documented involvement in activities outlawed by these pieces of legislation.
The detention of eight Bawm women for over a year and a half without trial has sparked concerns regarding potential human rights violations. This assertion comes from their lawyer Abdullah Al Noman. The Supreme Court advocate revealed difficulties in securing a hearing for the bail petitions, “So far, we have sought to hold the hearing of their bail petitions at three different High Court benches. The cases were returned with the remark, ‘We will not grant bail in Kuki-Chin cases, go to another court.’ This kind of behaviour is leading to grievous human rights violations.”
Sitting in his chambers, Noman further said, “This is a form of collective punishment against the Bawm people.”
Human rights defenders contend that the reported detentions are not isolated incidents, but evidence of a long-lasting, systemic discrimination by the state against its indigenous minority population. Saydia Gulrukh, an anthropologist and human rights activist, emphasised, “The legal system is unequal toward indigenous communities. When they are sick, they are entitled to receive treatment, yet three of them died in custody. We still do not know whether any investigation, as required under the jail code, was conducted to identify the real cause of death.”
Between the months of May and July 2025, three individuals identified as belonging to the Bawm community died while imprisoned at the Chattogram Central Jail.
Fighting this legal battle is financially challenging. Several have sold their ancestral land. Zing Nun Mawi has spoken out about the financial difficulties affecting her daughter's case, “Managing the case involves a lot of money. We could not directly appoint an advocate for Tina. We are learning that the people for whom the human rights organisations are working for are being released.”
Netra News has additionally identified five Bawm men who have been held in judicial custody without trial since April 2024. Lal Him Sang Bawm, Lal Leysang Bawm, Van Biak Lian Bawm, Mun Thang Lian Bawm and Lal Siang Thang Bawm have been in this purgatory for over one year and seven months.
In total, Netra News has found 75 Bawm men who were arrested between April 8th and December 2nd 2024, following last year’s bank robberies. As is the trend, they were apprehended in joint operations led by the army, spanning multiple locations including Bethel Para, Pankhiyang Para, Laironpi Para, Faruk Para, Munlai Para, Basatolang Para, Ronin Para, Eden Para, Happy Hill Para, Simatalanping Para, Shajahan Para, Darjeeling Para, Barua Para, Langyak Para, Sharon Para, Hebron Para, Chinlong Para, Jaion Para, Elim Para, Sunsang Para, Kana Para and Balaghata, Thanchi Sadar — across Bandarban.
No permission, no movement
To retrieve basic necessities like rice, oil, and vegetables, Bawm residents in the Chittagong Hill Tracts must first secure a written permit from the commander of the nearest army camp. This control is absolute. The right to earn a living is also curtailed, with villagers requiring the same permission simply to sell their products at the nearby market.
According to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission, at least six Bawm villages — Bethel Para, Pankhyang Para, Suanlu Para, Faruk Para, Eden Para, and Darjeeling Para — have been locked down under a sweeping army crackdown across Ruma, Bandarban, and Rowangchari. Apart from this, through an investigation by Netra News uncovered cases in Ronin Para, Lungthauchi Para, and Sunsaung Para. Here, Bawm residents are effectively trapped.
Neither the ISPR nor the civilian interim government responded to detailed questions from Netra News.
A letter in Bengali from a Bawm villager, who doesn’t speak the language, to the local army commander requesting permission to go to the market to buy basic necessities, including cooking oil, rice, and lentils.
Another letter — also approved — addressed to the local army commander, seeking permission to travel to the market to sell sacks of betel leaves, bearing the commander’s signed approval.
Ink and anger
Street art is bringing the Bawm detention crisis to the forefront, reclaiming the narrative for those detained. Graffiti of slogans — “Bawm Lives Matter”, “Free Bawm People” and more — have appeared throughout the three Hill districts and Dhaka as part of a growing protest movement. On May 15th of this year, echoes of these slogans reverberated in Dhaka as people from various walks of life gathered to demand the release of the detained Bawm individuals.
The ongoing crisis has drawn concern from international human rights organisations. On December 12th 2025, Amnesty International did more than just send a letter to Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus; they declared an Urgent Action, signalling a profound alarm over the situation.
Amplifying this crisis, Chris Chapman, Amnesty International's adviser on indigenous peoples’ rights, demanded an end to what he calls the indiscriminate targeting of the Bawm community, “Every Bawm detainee must be immediately released unless authorities can produce sufficient, admissible evidence of their criminal involvement.” Until then, he underscored the moral necessity of ensuring both competent legal counsel and essential healthcare for the detainees.
As of June 2025, 328 individuals from 121 Bawm families have returned to their ancestral homes in Bandarban. The group consists of 172 men, 116 women, and 40 children. Despite their return, the community continues to live precariously, the persistent threat of the KNF and army operations casting a pall of fear over it. Many are still in refugee camps in Mizoram too. Bawm villages in Bandarban, sparser than they used to be, are awaiting the return of their residents. The ongoing situation has trapped them in this brutal reality of a perennial, fearful waiting.
Once a hopeful teenager, cheerfully returning home to spend time with the family during her holiday, Tina Bawm faces the prospect of spending her second Christmas behind bars. Her books are now gathering dust; so is her mother’s hope.
Her mother said, “It seems her only crime is the name she carries: Bawm. ●
Marzia Hashmi Momo, a staff reporter, and Denim Chakma, a staff photographer, travelled to remote villages in Bandarban, and reviewed many pages of documents to report the story. Subinoy Mustofi Eron designed the webpage and created the graphic illustrations.