Bru refugees repatriation fails to take off on day one

Not a single Bru refugee returned to Mizoram on the first day today of the final repatriation exercise from the six relief camps in North Tripura, officials said.

A senior home department official of Mizoram government said that the state government machinery was waiting to conduct the repatriation, but none of the 32,000-odd refugees from the transit camps in Kanchanpur sub-division of North Tripura turned up to return home.

He said that the state government would go ahead with the repatriation schedule between August 25 and September 25 even if no one was ready to be repatriated.

The schedule has been drawn up by the Centre and the governments of Tripura and Mizoram.

Sub-Divisional Police Officer (Kanchanpur) Kiran Kumar said the repatriation could not take off today because no one turned up.

"Officials from local administration of Tripura and Mizoram government waited for refugees with arrangement for repatriation, but they did not come," Kumar told PTI.

Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Coordination Committee (MBDPCC) president L Laldingliana said none of the refugees want to return to Mizoram unless the Centre accepts their pending demands which include an Area Development Council (ADC), cluster villages, one-time cash payment etc.

In the last identification process conducted in November 2016, 32,876 Brus belonging to 5,407 families were treated as bonafide residents of Mizoram who could be repatriated.

During a recent exercise to determine who wanted to return to Mizoram, 2,753 people belonging to 423 families -- a majority of them from Kasakau relief camp in Tripura -- expressed willingness to return home.

Seven phases of repatriation have been held till day but several of them who repatriated returned later.

The Centre was optimistic that the Bru families would return to Mizoram during this final repatriation process after the agreement on July 3 signed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, chief ministers of Mizoram and Tripura and Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum (MBDPF) chief in Delhi.

In accordance with the agreement, all the Bru refugees were to be repatriated before September 30. The Centre had also said that all the relief camps housing the Bru refugees would be closed down after September 25.

The agreement stipulated Rs 1.5 lakh as housing assistance and Rs 4 lakh for each repatriated Bru family would be deposited in the bank account of the head of the family. The deposit would mature only after three years of uninterrupted stay in Mizoram.

Each repatriated Bru family would also be given Rs 5,000 through Direct Benefit Transfer every month and free ration for two years.

The refugees had rejected the agreement terming it as insufficient.

The agreement had also created a rift between the Bru refugees with the formation of Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Coordination Committee (MBDPCC) by people unhappy with the MBDPF's participation in the agreement.

Thousands of Brus had been lodged in the Tripura relief camps since late 1997 in the wake of a communal tension triggered by the brutal murder of Lalzawmliana, a forest guard inside the Dampa Tiger Reserve on October 21, 1997 by Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) militants.

Nearly 20,000 Bru refugees in Tripura are voters registered in Mizoram, which is set to go to Assembly polls later this year.

MBDPCC president L Laldingliana said none of the refugees want to return to Mizoram unless the Centre accepts their pending demands which include an Area Development Council (ADC), cluster villages, one-time cash payment etc.

The first attempt to repatriate them from November 16, 2009 not only failed but triggered another wave of exodus after Bru militants gunned down a youth at Bungthuam village 3 days before the commencement of the repatriation process.

Though some Bru families had already returned to Mizoram during a number of repatriation processes and on their own will, many of them refused to leave Tripura.