Tripura, Mizoram govts differ on number of Bru refugees

The governments of Tripura and Mizoram on Friday differed on the number of Bru refugees repatriated and there is a mismatch of 193 people in the figures provided by the two states. Mizoram Home Secretary Lalbiakzama said 892 people of 221 internally-displaced Bru families have been repatriated, while North Tripura District Magistrate Ravel H Kumar put the figure at 699 refugees belonging to 144 families.

Altogether 4,447 Bru displaced families, lodged in relief camps at Kanchanpur and Panisagar sub-divisions of North Tripura district, are scheduled to return to neighbouring Mizoram from where they had fled since 1997 following ethnic clashes. This ninth round of repatriation process, stated to be the "final" one, will come to an end on November 30. The Mizoram home secretary said 892 Bru people, including 351 children, belonging to 221 families have been repatriated till November 14.

Of them, 134 families have been settled at Mamit district, 68 in Lunglei and 19 in Kolasib district of Mizoram, Lalbiakzama said. Kumar on Friday sent an official report to the chief secretary's office providing date-wise number of people repatriated to Mizoram between October 3, when the process began, and November 15.

However, he said in the report, no Bru person went to Mizoram since October 31, though the process has been on. The displaced people had launched a roadblock at Kanchanpur from October 31 demanding resumption of cash-dole and free ration to them. It was withdrawn on November 7 following an assurance from Tripura Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Deb Varma to resume supply of free ration.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has stopped all allowances to the displaced Bru persons from October and the Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum (MBDPF), a major body of the refugees, claimed that six people had died of starvation after the ration supply was stopped. The Tripura government, however, said four people died and the cause of the deaths was being ascertained.

Meanwhile, the MBDPF on Friday said a delegation of the Bru refugees had visited New Delhi to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah but could not meet him due to his busy schedule. "However, we submitted a memorandum to his office. We have clearly mentioned there that six Brus including four infants had died as starvation hit the rehabilitation camps following stoppage of ration by the Centre since October 1," MBDPF president A Swaibunga told reporters.

They also put forward several demands including repatriating the refugees in Bru inhabited areas to preserve their ethnic identity, allocate more land to each displaced family for their proper rehabilitation, and provisions for development projects in the proposed rehabilitation areas. "The Mizoram government plans to repatriate 35,000 Brus in 77 villages of different districts. We demanded that rehabilitation should be in Bru inhabited areas to preserve our identity and central forces should be there for the security of the Brus," Swaibunga said.

He said the Mizoram government has allocated only 1,200 square feet of land per repatriated family in rural areas which is not sufficient. MBDPF secretary Bruno Msha said the ninth round of repatriation will be concluded on November 30.

"Around 32,000 inmates are in the camps. I do not think it would be possible to repatriate them within such a short time. We are also citizens of India. We think the government would take a proper decision in this regard," Msha told PTI. Eight attempts had been made to repatriate the Brus and only around 1,681 families have returned to Mizoram since 2010 and were resettled in Mamit, Kolasib and Lunglei districts.

The vexed Bru problem started when the Bru people, spearheaded by an organisation, Bru National Union, demanded a separate autonomous district council by carving out areas of western Mizoram adjoining Bangladesh and Tripura in September, 1997. The situation was aggravated by the murder of a forest guard in the Dampa Tiger Reserve in western Mizoram by Bru National Liberation Front insurgents on October 21, 1997.

The first attempt to repatriate the Brus from Tripura from November 16, 2009 not only fizzled out due to the murder of a Mizo youth at Bungthuam village on November 13, 2009, but also triggered another wave of exodus..

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)