The Indian Express
Bru repatriation: Cloud over process intensifies as none turn
No Bru has turned up for the verification process even on the third day of the ongoing last and final repatriation process for the community, a senior official said Thursday.
The repatriation process of Bru tibals is likely to be completed by September.
Aizawl | Published on:June 4, 2015 4:04 pm
No Bru has turned up for the verification process even on the third day of the ongoing last and final repatriation process for the community, a senior official said Thursday.
Mamit Deputy Commissioner Vanlalngaihsaka said over phone there has been “nil” verification because inmates of the Kaskau relief camp in North Tripura did not turn up at the government set-up counters over the past three days.
Inmates at Kaskau has meanwhile submitted a memorandum to the government saying they will not return to Mizoram unless their demands of being resettled in the same villages they once lived in within Mizoram and enhanced compensation packages are given. They also complained that the timing of the repatriation is not conducive for their farming season.
The officials deputed for the verification process at the camp are scheduled to move towards Khakchangpara relief camp next, but authorities are not hopeful that results will be any different there or in the four other camps they will go to afterwards.
If anyone who passes the verification process is willing to return to Mizoram, the state government would privide transportation for them to return to the state from Tripura and resettle them in selected villages where they will be allotted land and given compensation packages.
Tens of thousands of Bru tribals fled Mizoram in 1997 following ethnic violence between them and the majority Mizos following the murder of a Mizo official by Bru militants.
They made their way to Tripura where the neighbouring state put them in designated relief camps where they have been lodged ever since. Tripura has repeatedly said Mizoram should take back the tribals.
Six phases of the repatriation process has been organised since 2010 but these have met with limited success, partly because relief camp leaders have rejected the compensation package saying it is too less.
The Ministry of Home Affairs and the Mizoram and Tripura governments have agreed and told the Supreme Court, which is monitoring the repatrartion process, that this would be the last time an effort is made to repatriate the tribals.
Anyone who does not take part would be removed from Mizoram’s electoral rolls (where they have continued to remain after a generation in absentia) and the relief camps disbanded, the sides had agreed.
Kaskau camp has 1100-odd people registered in Mizoram’s electoral rolls, while more than ten times that number are spread over all the six camps taken as a whole. In all, about 30,000 people remain in the camps.
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