Mizoram government has submitted Roadmap V, for repatriation of Brus

AIZAWL: Mizoram government has submitted Roadmap V, a detailed plan for repatriation of Brus, to the Ministry of Home Affairs, state additional secretary for Home Lalbiakzama said today.

The Roadmap was submitted yesterday and finalisation of the proposal would be made after the Ministry of Home Affairs approves the plan, Lalbiakzama told PTI.

He said the proposal was to repatriate over 20,700 Brus, including 11,500 minors belonging to 3,455 families from six relief camps in North Tripura district.

The total proposed expenses for the repatriation was earlier estimated at Rs 68 crore in the Roadmap IV of which over Rs 9.7 crore was released by the Centre last year.

"We have spent around Rs one lakh during the proposed repatriation in 2015," he said, adding, the state government would ask more fund in case of further requirement.

The effort to repatriate 3,500 Bru families during June to September in 2015 failed as not a single Bru came forward in their respective relief camps before the Mizoram officials, to be identified as bona fide residents of Mizoram.

Thousands of Bru families fled Mizoram and migrated to Tripura due to communal tension triggered by the murder of Lalzawmliana, a game watcher near Persang hamlet inside the Mizoram-Bangladesh-Tripura border Dampa Tiger Reserve, by suspected Bru militants on October 21, 1997.

The first effort to repatriate them from November 16, 2009 was not only scuttled by the murder of one Zarzokima of Bungthuam village three days earlier, but triggered another round of exodus.

Though a number of Bru families returned to Mizoram during repeated repatriation process and some of them returned on their own, a sizeable number of families remained in the neighbouring state.