The settlements of the Bru refugees in the relief camps will be dismantled as soon as the families occupying them are repatriated to Mizoram. Ralte said the decision to dismantle the houses vacated by the repatriated Bru refugees was taken at a meeting with North Tripura district magistrate Prashant Kumar in Tripura's Dharmanagar on April 21.
He said the transportation for the refugees from the relief camps will be arranged by the Tripura government and the repatriated refugees will be brought to the facilitation centres established at Kanhmun and Zomuantlang villages in Mizoram.
The repatriated refugees will be temporarily lodged in the two facilitation centres, where proper identification will be conducted by officials and those confirmed as bona fide residents of Mizoram will be resettled in the Manipur villages.
Meanwhile, the Mamit deputy commissioner's office will disburse Rs 1.5 lakh from this week on to each Mizo family who fled to Mizoram from Sakhan range in Tripura after being reportedly intimidated by some members of the Bru community in 1998, the aftermath of communal tension in Mizoram leading to the exodus of Brus from Mizoram in 1997.
NGOs and political parties in Mizoram had insisted that Mizo families displaced from Tripura should be rehabilitated before the resumption of Bru repatriation. This had stopped the resumption of Bru repatriation, which was scheduled to commence from the first week of June 2011.
Union home minister P Chidambaram's promise, during his second Mizoram visit recently, to rehabilitate the Mizo displaced families and the state government's assurance to disburse rehabilitation packages to them paved the way for the resumption of Bru repatriation on time.
Ralte said out of the 83 Mizo families to be rehabilitated by the Mizoram government, 34 families, who submitted their reports that were later verified, will be rehabilitated first. "The 25 families, who have returned to Tripura, will be rehabilitated by the Tripura government," he added.
According to Mizoram government records, there were 3,014 Bru families living in the Tripura relief camps; out of which, 819 families have returned to Mizoram-381 families returned in the repatriation arranged by the government and 438 families returned on their own.