AIZAWL: The Bru refugee
repatriation from Tripura to Mizoram will be completed before the Lok
Sabha polls. In this connection, the District Level Core Committee on
Bru Repatriation and Rehabilitation Committee today held a meeting at
Mamit in Mizoram. The meeting deliberated over the further process of
the Bru refugees being lodged at Tripura Transit Camps. 96 families from
three Transit Camps at Kaskau, Khangchangpara and Hamsapara have been
verified so far out of the 330 families in the ongoing repatriation
phase.
The Committee resolved to continue the verification process to complete repatriation of 330 families, as has been proposed. The meeting also decided that the report of the verification shall be submitted not later than March 21 to District Level Core Committee. The Committee decided to ensure rehabilitation of the refugees at the villages of their choice by calling in advance on the concerned village councils in this regard.
It is worth mentioning here that the relationship between the Mizos and the Brus has not been going well for the past 15 years. Hundreds of Brus had left Mizoram in 1997 and in 2009. The first case was triggered when Bru militants murdered two Mizo forest guards on October 21, 1997. The second case happened after a 17-year-old Mizo boy was killed by the Brus near Bungthuam village on November 13, 2009. When the Brus left Mizoram they had driven out some Mizos in villages of Sakhan Hill Range in Tripura like Sakhan Serhmun, Sakhan Tlangsang, Sakhan Tualsen and Upper Dosda which had kicked up much ruckus in Mizoram then.
Meanwhile, a head count conducted by the MBDPF a couple of years ago, found that there had been 31,703 Brus in the relief camps belonging to 5,448 families who were bona fide residents of Mizoram. The repatriation of the 1997 batch of Bru refugees was underway until it stalled because of the November 13 killing.
In the year 2011, a conglomeration of major NGOs in Mizoram had submitted a joint memorandum to the then Union Home minister P Chidambaram to rehabilitate displaced Mizos in Tripura and stall the ongoing repatriation of Brus from Tripura to Mizoram. The memorandum was signed by representatives of four large NGOs in the state--the Young Mizo Association (YMA), the MZP, the Mizoram Upa Pawl (MUP) or elders association and the Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl (MHIP) or the women's federation and four political parties.
The memorandum had mentioned that more than 80 Mizo families displaced from Tripura's Sakhan Hill range in 1998 after being threatened by Bru militants and called for adequate rehabilitation from the Centre. Otherwise, the repatriation of Bru refugees from Tripura relief camps should not be allowed, the memorandum had stated.