Mizoram to Push Back 28 Bru Families

Aizawl, Feb 4 : The Mizoram government will send back 28 Bru families, who returned to the state of their own will and effort during January, to neighbouring Tripura as they are not enrolled in Mizoram voters' lists, according to officials.

Of the 221 Bru families that returned to the state from relief camps in North Tripura district's Kanchanpur sub-division, 28 could not prove that they were bona fide residents of Mizoram and the government does not have any alternative but to deport them back, claimed the officials. A senior state home department official, who did not wish to be identified, said the identification of bona fide residents was undertaken and completed at the six relief camps and also in various villages in Mamit district along the Mizoram-Tripura border because 221 families returned on their own will to the state without prior identification.

"The criteria for identification of Bru refugees are inclusion in the voters' lists of Mizoram and ownership of job cards under the NREGS and ration cards," the official said. The Young Mizo Association (YMA) branch of Tuidam village in Mamit yesterday issued an eviction order to seven Bru families who "illegally" came and started staying in the village recently, and told them to return to Tripura on or before February 8.

The YMA leaders claimed that the seven families did not belong to the village and were not bona fide residents of Mizoram. Meanwhile, the Mizoram government could not commence the third phase of repatriation of Bru refugees that's due as funds earmarked for the expenses of the project are yet to be disbursed to the Mamit district administration.

The ministry of home affairs has sanctioned the funds but they have not been released, a senior official in Mamit district said, adding that even after the fund is released it has to be routed through the state finance and the home departments.

"We would not be able to disburse the rehabilitation and resettlement package unless the funds are available with the Mamit district administration," he said. Earlier, a meeting of major NGOs in the state urged the government not to repatriate the Bru refugees until and unless the Bru militants eschew violence and lay down arms and also not to allow the return of the refugees without supervision by the government officials.