Post-docu theft,Bru body for fresh revision of electoral rolls

The newly-formed Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Coordination Committee (MBDPCC) has appealed to the Election Commission and the Mizoram government to conduct revision of electoral rolls in the six relief camps in Tripura again.

The request followed a burglary at the election office of Mizoram's Mamit district following which enlistment forms duly filled in by the displaced Bru people in the relief camps of the neighbouring Tripura have gone missing.

The August 23 burglary took place two days before the final phase of repatriation of Bru families from Tripura to Mizoram started on August 25.

In a statement issued yesterday evening, MBDPCC president T Laldingliana asked the poll panel and the Mizoram government officials to conduct revision of voters list expeditiously and hand over the electoral photo identity cards to the voters personally.

Mizoram, the last remaining Congress bastion in the northeast, is due for polls this December.

The MNDPCC president condemned the theft of filled in election forms and praised the EC and the Mizoram government for conducting revision of voters lists in the relief camps earlier.

The Mizoram election department has conducted revision of voters lists of Bru refugees in their Tripura camps before the repatriation, despite opposition from the civil societies.

Mizoram police arrested five persons, including two women, in connection with the burglary. All of them work in the district election office.

Thousands of Bru refugees from Mizoram fled to Tripura after ethnic clashes of 1997. The clashes broke out after a forest official was killed by Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) militants.

Over 32,000 Bru people have been living in six temporary camps in North Tripura district since then.