Mizos Halt To Phase 3 Of Bru Repatriation

Aizawl, May 25 : The Mizoram government has stopped the ongoing third phase of Bru refugee repatriation from the six relief camps in the neighbouring Kanchanpur sub-division of North Tripura district.

The repatriation programme began in April and 662 of the targeted 890 Bru families have so far returned to their homes, officials said on Tuesday.

VL Rema, SDO (Sadar) of Mizoram-Tripura border district of Mamit, said according to plans, the fourth phase of repatriation, scheduled to begin from June, would be followed by an identification process. One of the main excuses of the Bru refugees' refusal to return to Mizoram is that they were already late for preparation of lands for jhum cultivation, while officials, however, hold that they could have returned last year but some anti-repatriation leaders opposed the process.

"They could have returned last year when the repatriation began in November," an official said, adding that some leaders were being benefited from presence of refugees in the relief camps by swindling the assistance given to them.

Meanwhile, election department officials from Mizoram were currently camping at relief camps in Tripura to provide electoral photo identity cards (EPICs) to eligible voters. An election official said many refugees, who have been enlisted in the Mizoram voters' lists, were yet to return to Mizoram and that 1,467 Bru voters, lodged in the largest relief camp - Naisingpara - were yet to get their EPICs.

Thousands of Brus migrated to Tripura from Mizoram in the wake of the murder of Lalzawmliana, a forest guard near Persang hamlet inside the Dampa Tiger Reserve, by Bru militants on October 17, 1997. The move to repatriate the refugees from November 16, 2009 was not only sabotaged by another murder of a Mizo boy near Bungthuam village three days before, but also saw another mass exodus of the Brus.