The latest effort of the Union Home Affairs Ministry to end the impasse over relocation of more than 30,000 Mizoram Bru tribal refugees now languishing in north Tripura has failed. The problem arose as the Mizoram government reiterated its decision to check the credentials of evacuees before paving the way for their return, official sources said on Friday.
A meeting of officials of the Ministry and the State government and leaders of the Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples’ Forum was held in Delhi on October 15 to work out a reconciliation and start the stalled repatriation. Only a few thousand refugees have returned over the past few years in unsuccessful official initiatives.
“We want that all refugee camp inmates should be taken, but Mizoram officials want verification of refugees to be eligible to join the process. This is nothing but an attempt to delay the process and continue the stalemate,” Laldawgliana, vice-president of the forum, told The Hindu .
He and two fellow leaders attended the New Delhi meeting chaired by Joint Secretary M.A. Ganapathy and attended by a team of officials from Mizoram. A senior Tripura government official was present.
The forum’s leader said they had demanded at the meeting that the returning families must be settled down in 16 villages and not scattered as planned by the Mizoram government.
Bru or Reang families left Mizoram in September 1997 in the wake of ethnic violence to take shelter at Kanchanpur in north Tripura. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh who visited makeshift camps on February 14 this year made an appeal to the Mizoram government and refugees to end the crisis.
