Tourist Travel to Sajek Banned Again as Indefinite Blockade Returns; Visitors Ordered to Leave by Thursday Afternoon

The district administration has once again banned tourist travel to Sajek Valley in Baghaichhari upazila of Rangamati. Sajek's tourist spots have been declared temporarily closed from 7pm on Wednesday until further notice, and tourists currently staying there have been ordered to leave the area and return safely to their destinations by 4pm on Thursday.

The decision was announced in an urgent public notice issued by the Rangamati district administration's media cell at 7:51pm on Wednesday. The notice, signed by Deputy Commissioner Nazma Ashrafi, said the decision was taken due to unavoidable circumstances.

Before the administration's announcement, another major decision had come the same day from two local organisations. The Sajek Gana Adhikar Rakkha Committee and the Sajek Karbari Association have called an indefinite blockade on the Sajek tourist road from Thursday, demanding that security be ensured and the armed members of the JSS Santu group be removed. The programme was announced over allegations that their three-point demands have not been met.

The blockade was announced in a press release published on the Facebook page of the Sajek Gana Adhikar Rakkha Committee at around 4pm on Wednesday. Sajek Karbari Association president Notun Joy Chakma and committee convener Babudhan Chakma jointly announced the programme. The statement said the blockade would continue until a further announcement, and tourists staying in Sajek were requested to leave the area by Wednesday.

In the statement, the leaders of the two organisations alleged that armed members of the JSS Santu group are still positioned in various parts of Sajek. Their demand is that the armed members be removed and the safety of ordinary people ensured. They have staged road blockades over this demand before.

The sequence of events is a long one. Earlier, on October 11, the two organisations began an indefinite blockade on the Sajek road from the morning. That afternoon, the blockade was suspended after the administration and law enforcement agencies assured them their demands would be met within 48 hours.

But on October 15 they resumed the blockade, alleging the demands had not been fulfilled. They later announced a suspension of the programme from October 16 to 21 for the Sharadiya Durga Puja, and as soon as that suspension expired, the call for an indefinite blockade returned.

The administration's position has also changed several times during this period. On October 15 the district administration withdrew its earlier ban on tourist travel to Sajek. After remaining closed for about five days, Sajek's tourist spots had reopened to visitors. But after the new blockade announcement, the administration has had to return to a closure decision.

During the earlier blockades, traffic on the Sajek-Dighinala road came to a halt and local residents and tourists suffered greatly. Obstacles placed at various points on the road stranded vehicles, including tourist vehicles. Later, after talks with law enforcement agencies, convoys were allowed to move.

The new decision has directly affected the thousands of tourists who went to Sajek for the Puja holiday. Motijoy Tripura, joint general secretary of the Sajek Resort Owners' Association, said about 3,500 tourists entered Sajek across Wednesday morning and afternoon for the Durga Puja holiday. They will now discuss with the administration how the tourists can be brought back safely. He also feared that frequent closures of the tourist spots would cause major losses to the tourism sector.

On arrangements for the tourists' return, Faisal Mahmud, publicity secretary of the Sajek Resort Owners' Association, said the tourists staying in Sajek would be escorted safely to their destinations under army escort at 8:30am on Thursday. Tourists are usually taken out through two escorts, but on Thursday morning the arrangement will be made through a single escort, he said.

With the new ban and the blockade announcement, Sajek's tourism activities and road communications have fallen into uncertainty once again. When this popular tourist destination returns to normal now depends on the administration's next steps on the demands and on the blockaders' decisions.