Who are the Kuki-Chin National Army?

Members of the militant group Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA) are suspected to be involved with three banks in Bandarban within just 16 hours. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday afternoon also told reporters about his suspicion.

KNA is the armed wing of the Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF), a banned separatist organisation based in the CHT that seeks independence for the hill area.

The KNA came to the spotlight in May last year after two soldiers of the Bangladesh Army were killed in attacks reportedly carried out by them in Bandarban.

According to the Army, the KNF is involved in training militants in exchange for money. In October 2022, law enforcers discovered the KNF was training members of a new militant group named Jama'atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya.

With the claim of responsibility for nearly two dozen killings of CHT individuals, the KNF emerged as a fresh source of worry in the remote Rangamati, Khagrachari, and Bandarban districts of the region.

With its forest cover and numerous mountains, the region is a pick for numerous armed and separatist groups.

According to media reports, there are currently around 4,000 trained KNA members living both inside and outside the country.

Who are they?

The Chin-Kuki-Mizo belong to the same tribe with different names residing in Myanmar, Bangladesh and India with close geographical proximity along the border region between the countries. This ethnic armed group is engaged in political and military endeavours to establish an independent state in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, which encompass the majority of the Bandarban and Rangamati districts.

Their political front, the KNF, emerged as a non-profit development organisation, but since 2017, it has evolved into a separatist group.

Kuki-Chin is a geographical grouping of numerous Tibeto-Burman language-speaking ethnic communities that make up the majority in the Indian state of Mizoram and the Chin state of Myanmar.

The KNF, often known as the "Bawm Party" locally, is made up of six members of the Kuki-Chin ethnic group: the Bom, Pangkhua, Lusai, Khumi, Mro, and Khiang.

KNF leadership

The founding president of KNF, Nathan Bom, earned his master's degree from the Fine Arts Faculty of Dhaka University.

He was an active member of the Dhaka metropolitan branch and central committee of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity's student organisation Pahari Chhatra Parishad. He is also the founding president of the Kuki-Chin National Development Organization.

He was the first candidate from the Bom community as an independent candidate in the 2018 parliamentary election.

It is believed that implicitly the KNF does not support the CHT Peace Treaty, which, according to different media reports, they feel overwhelmingly supports the Chakma clan – who have more national representation than other tribes in the region.

They are also found engaged in fierce battles with the Jana Sanghati Samity (JSS) members and spreading terror in villages to establish supremacy.