Fourth phase of repatriation of Bru refugees from Tripura fail

AIZAWL/AGARTALA: Not a single Bru refugee returned from Tripura to Mizoram on the last day of repatriation, as a Bru organisation expressed fear that they would be forced to live as second class citizens if they went back.

Yesterday was the last day of the fourth phase of repatriation for Brus sheltered in North Tripura where they had fled since 1997 after ethnic clashes in their home state over land.

The Mizoram government had made arrangements at Mamit on the border with Tripura for receiving 147 Bru families from the Kaskau relief camp in North Tripura yesterday, but none returned, Mamit Deputy Commissioner Rodney L Ralte said.

Officials sent to the relief camp and also to the facilitation camps were also returning, he said.

Expressing fear that they would have to live as second class citizens in their homeland if they returned, General Secretary of Mizo Bru Displaced People's Forum Bruno Mesha said in Agartala that 85 per cent of the refugees in Tripura camps would not be on voters lists if they returned home.

Mesha said that the Mizoram government had agreed to take back only those refugees whose names figured in the final voters list published in 1995.

"If this criteria is followed, 85 per cent of the names of refugees would be deleted from the voters list. We cannot live there as second class citizen," he said.

He also said that if they returned to Mizoram they would not be able to take part in jhum cultivation and miss a year's harvest.

The fourth phase of the repatriation which began from April 26 as proposed by the Union Home Ministry and the state governments of Mizoram and Tripura failed as only 41 Brus of seven families of the 669 families returned to Mizoram.

Appeals by major NGOs in Mizoram to the Brus also failed to evoke any response.

The refugees have demanded formation of a separate district council for the Brus under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution in Mizoram as a condition for their return.

The demands were placed with the Union Home Ministry and the Mizoram government.