United People's Democratic Front ( UPDF; ) is a regional

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

based in the

Chittagong Hill Tracts The Chittagong Hill Tracts ( bn, পার্বত্য চট্টগ্রাম, Parbotto Chottogram), often shortened to simply the Hill Tracts and abbreviated to CHT, are group of districts within the Chittagong Division in southeast ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. Chakmas form the majority ethnic group in the party. The United People's Democratic Front claims to seek a fully autonomous Hill Tracts through peaceful and democratic means. However, many of its members are armed and have expressed violent Buddhist extremist behaviour.

Founding

The United People's Democratic Front was founded on 26 December 1998 at a conference in

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...

. At the end of the conference, a five-member convening committee was formed with Prasit Bikash Khisha as its convener. In November 2006, Prasit Bikash Khisha was elected to presidency by the party's central committee during a congress in Dhaka. In the same meeting, Rabi Shankar Chakma became the new general secretary.

Elections

The UPDF took part in the eighth national parliamentary elections in 2001 and though failed to win in any of the two seats in CHT it contested, the party received a considerable number of votes cast, to the surprise of many analysts.

History

In July 2021, the party's Joan Chakma led a contingent of Buddhist- Chakmas to Suandrapara, a village of the Bawm Christian convert community, where they issued threats and conducted two violent raids leading damaging a church. Towards the end of the same month, four of the party's members were arrested for

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

References

1998 establishments in Bangladesh Political parties established in 1998 Political parties in Bangladesh {{Bangladesh-party-stub