Eighty-two people belonging to 19 Bru families living in relief camps in Tripura left for their homeland Mizoram on Wednesday during the on-going repatriation, officials said here.
With this 19, a total of 148 Bru families have been repatriated since the ninth round of the exercise, which is termed as the "final" repatriation, began on October 3.
Altogether 4,447 Bru displaced families, lodged in the relief camps at Kanchanpur and Panisagar sub-divisions of North Tripura district, are scheduled to return to the neighbouring state from where they had fled since 1997 following ethnic clashes.
The Bru community, also called Reangs, is among the 21 scheduled tribes in the country. They are scattered across Assam, Mizoram and Tripura.
Of the 19 families who returned to Mamit district on Wednesday included members of 16 who did so on their own without availing the transport provided by the state government, Mizoram home department officials said.
The 82 people who included 32 minors were lodged in Naisingpara, Asapara and Hazacherra relief camps and they would be resettled in nine villages of Mamit district, the officials said.
The Centre had made it clear that the relief camps of Bru refugees in Tripura would be closed down and the displaced persons must be repatriated to Mizoram during the ongoing exercise, Special Secretary (internal security), Ministry of Home Affairs, A P Maheshwari, had said on October 16.
Maheswari, however, did not mention any date when the relief camps would be closed down. The repatriation is scheduled to continue till November 30.
A section of Bru leaders are opposed to the repatriation and raised several fresh demands during a meeting chaired by Maheshwari at Agartala.
"That is why many Bru families are returning secretly," the officials claimed.
During the eighth round of repatriation, the Ministry of Home Affairs had warned that the relief camps would be closed down from October one 2018 and free ration and money doled to the displaced families would be discontinued. However, that phase did not bear much fruit.
While the MHA did stop the free ration and cash dole from October one, 2018, the Centre restarted it apparently due to political reasons as Mizoram assembly election was nearing.
The Centre has approved Rs 350 crore for the ninth phase of repatriation and the amount covers transportation and rehabilitation package expenses, which include Rs 5,000 per month for each resettled Bru family in Mizoram and free ration for them for two years.
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.
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