UPDF has openly sought political support from communities in India’s northeastern states against the Santu Larma-led PCJSS. This documented UPDF outreach to India raises important questions about possible foreign influence, particularly given India’s historical role in the 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord.
The concern is not simply who supports UPDF, but whether any individuals or networks operating from Indian territory have unlawful foreign funding, intelligence connections or operational links with armed groups. Such possibilities require credible evidence, not assumptions based on political opinions or Indigenous identity.
There is a documented example of UPDF seeking support inside India. On August 1, 2013, its Central Committee published an appeal to people in Tripura, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, especially Chakma communities. It urged them not to support the Santu Larma-led PCJSS against UPDF and invited them to support UPDF instead.
That example of UPDF outreach to India establishes cross-border political advocacy, not an illegal funding operation. Yet it creates a legitimate question: have any individuals or networks involved in this wider rivalry subsequently developed unlawful financial relationships or operational links with armed groups?
The historical stakes are substantial. During the armed conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, thousands of Indigenous Jumma refugees fled to India’s Tripura state. India sheltered them and cooperated in arrangements for their return, helping create conditions for a negotiated settlement near its sensitive northeastern frontier.
On December 2, 1997, Bangladesh and PCJSS signed the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord. PCJSS accepted a political settlement within Bangladesh’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. On February 10, 1998, members of its armed wing, the Shanti Bahini, began surrendering their weapons.
For India, the agreement offered an opportunity for reduced border instability and stronger civilian political institutions in the hills. But opposition to the Accord had already developed before the settlement was signed. That chronology is central to understanding the division that followed.
According to UPDF’s own timeline, three Indigenous organisations demanded full autonomy in March 1997 and rejected the Accord that December. Their activists opposed the arms surrender in February 1998. Leaders from that political current established UPDF on December 26, 1998.
Political opposition, party formation and later armed rivalry were therefore distinct stages. Some opponents sincerely considered the Accord insufficient for Indigenous autonomy and land rights. Acknowledging those grievances does not prevent examination of whether other interests subsequently exploited the movement’s divisions.
PCJSS entered a negotiated settlement, but its rivalry with UPDF later developed into repeated armed confrontations. Meanwhile, Bangladesh did not implement every provision of the Accord. Disputes over land, the powers of regional institutions and the continued role of security forces remained unresolved.
The University of Notre Dame’s Peace Accords Matrix records disarmament alongside uneven implementation of other commitments. The government’s responsibility to honour the Accord did not disappear because Indigenous organisations disagreed. Nevertheless, the continuing rivalry reduced opportunities for unified political pressure.
Who benefited from that division? Continued instability could reinforce arguments for military-centred administration. It could also offer strategic opportunities to external powers that preferred India to gain fewer benefits from the 1997 settlement. These possible advantages are reasons to ask questions, not evidence of a hidden operation.
Pakistan belongs in that discussion as a hypothesis. It would not have needed to control territory in the Chittagong Hill Tracts to benefit from an unsuccessful settlement associated with India’s diplomatic and humanitarian involvement. But strategic advantage and responsibility for causing an outcome are different matters.
No reliable public evidence establishes that Pakistani intelligence founded UPDF, financed its original leaders or directed its activities. Nor is it established that Bangladesh’s army created UPDF. An allegation of that magnitude would require authenticated communications, corroborated testimony, financial records or other verifiable evidence.
PCJSS has nevertheless made allegations about military patronage. In its January–June 2026 human rights report, the organisation accused elements of Bangladesh’s military of supporting the Prasit-led UPDF and blamed that faction for attacks on PCJSS members and supporters.
The same report alleged that UPDF used official and anonymous social media accounts to campaign against PCJSS leaders and Indigenous civil society figures. These are assertions by a party to the conflict, not independently established findings. UPDF has also accused PCJSS of violence and defended its opposition to the Accord.
For India, the issue is how political rivalry may travel across its borders. Public appeals, community discussions and online advocacy are lawful forms of expression. Financial transfers assisting armed violence, covert direction by foreign intelligence agencies or documented incitement to violence would raise very different legal and security questions.
Where credible evidence exists, appropriate authorities can examine suspicious funding channels, organisational records and verifiable links to armed activities. Public social media posts may help establish threats or illegal fundraising. Private communications and bank records, however, should only be accessed through lawful procedures and safeguards.
This distinction is especially important for Indigenous people with family links to the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Supporting UPDF, criticising Santu Larma or disagreeing with PCJSS is not proof of a foreign intelligence connection. Monitoring people merely because they belong to a community would damage rights without establishing security facts.
PCJSS has longstanding historical connections with India, but it remains a Bangladeshi Indigenous political organisation, not an instrument of New Delhi. India’s interest in regional stability should not depend on declaring one Indigenous faction loyal and another disloyal. It should depend on reliable evidence and the consequences of unlawful conduct.
Nor should the conduct of either organisation be used to judge the Chakma people as a whole. Ordinary Indigenous families continue to face land disputes, insecurity and the consequences of an unfinished settlement. They have the greatest stake in ending violence and implementing political commitments.
A useful historical inquiry would ask why the anti-Accord movement emerged before December 1997, how the resulting rivalry endured, and whether any state institution or foreign network later exploited it. Those are three different questions; the answer to one does not automatically prove the others.
I explored the wider Pakistan–India hypothesis in my Times of Israel article, Did Pakistan Defeat India in the Chittagong Hill Tracts?. Here the focus is narrower: evidence of possible unlawful connections involving political activities extending into India, and the significance of those connections if established.
The 2013 UPDF appeal confirms public outreach into India. The 2026 PCJSS report records allegations of military assistance and online campaigns. Neither demonstrates Pakistani involvement or illegal financing of India-based supporters. Conflating these facts with unproven claims would weaken the very inquiry the issue deserves.
India helped create an opening for the 1997 political settlement, but nearly three decades later the Accord remains incomplete and Indigenous political divisions persist. Who gained from those divisions, and has any outside interest attempted to exploit them through unlawful cross-border activity?
India has reason to examine credible evidence wherever it leads, while protecting lawful political expression. The deeper question remains whether the strategic opportunity created in 1997 was weakened by unresolved grievances alone—or whether outside actors tried to turn that division to their advantage.