Longodujhuri (Khal) Chak Para, now deserted of human habitation, is located in Baishari Union in Naikongchari Upazila in Bandarban Hill District. Quite unknown even to regular trekkers to the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Baishari is one of four unions in Naikongchari Upazila with Chak inhabitation. The Chak is one of the very small indigenous communities in the CHT with a population of around 3,000- all concentrated in Naikongchari Upazila. There are another four to five thousand of them in Myanmar. Longodujhuri (Khal) Chak Para was one of seven Chak villages in Baishari Union. Now the village has vanished from the list.
Life was simple for the Chaks of Longodujhuri (Khal) Chak Para completely dependent on land and forests for which they never had titles. They were well-fed and happy people with their life completely dependent on land and forests. What they grew on cropland and in jum was more than enough for round the year. They never thought about papers for their land and forests.
The trouble began when the desperate outsiders, began to invade for bamboo and timber on land that belonged to nobody on paper. It was to the advantage of the outsiders that the constitution and laws in Bangladesh do not recognize customary rights of the indigenous peoples in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and elsewhere in Bangladesh.
Rubber and tobacco have turned out to be a serious issue in four (Lama, Naikongchari, Bandarban Sadar, and Alikadam) out of eight upazilas of Bandarban Hill District. These have caused severe threat to the Chaks and other small ethnic communities and have caused massive destruction to the local ecology. These have brought in outsiders who have marauded the land that the indigenous communities have used for generations.
Land granted for rubber plantation and horticulture in Bangladesh comes under the jurisdiction of three authorities- the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board (CHTDB), the Deputy Commissioner (DC), and the Standing Committee (for rubber). CHTDB oversees the rubber cultivation on 2,000 acres of land leased to 500 households under the rehabilitation project. These families are supposed to get land titles in their names, which they still have not gotten.