Reang refugees return home to Mizoram

Agartala: All the over 250 Reang tribals, including women and children, who had fled to Tripura from nearby western Mizoram earlier this week, have since returned home, officials in the Tripura capital said on Saturday.
“After persuasion from Tripura and Mizoram government officials, all the 253 people (from the Reang tribe) have returned to their villages in western Mizoram,” a Tripura government relief department official told IANS.
He said that Mizoram government officials have assured panic-stricken tribals that they would be provided security in their villages.
“Out of fear and because of the prevailing tension, around 250 tribal people had fled to Tripura from nearby Mamit district in western Mizoram on Monday and Tuesday,” north Tripura District Magistrate Prashant Kumar Goel had earlier told IANS on phone.
He said: “Tripura officials have immediately rushed to Kanchanpur along the Tripura-Mizoram border (195 km north of Agartala) and Mizoram officials also came to the areas where the refugees took shelter. Officials of both the states have persuaded the refugees to return to their villages in Mamit district.”
Goel said he has also talked to his Mamit district counterpart, and requested him to take appropriate steps to take back the tribals to their villages — Damdiai, Tumpanglui and New Eden.
Tension was prevailing in Reang-dominated villages in Mamit district over the kidnapping of three people on November 23 last year by the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) militants, aided by suspected Reang militants.
Among the three kidnapped was a Kolkata-based telecommunications professional. Two Mizoram-based drivers of private vehicles were also kidnapped.
The militants on Wednesday released the two drivers.
Over 36,000 tribal refugees (locally called Bru), have already been living in seven makeshift camps in northern Tripura for the past 17 years (since October 1997), after fleeing their villages in Mizoram following ethnic trouble with the majority Mizos. The trouble began after a Mizo forest official was killed. Around 5,000 refugees returned to their homes and villages in the past three years, following continued persuasion by Mizoram, Tripura and the Centre. (IANS)