GUWAHATI: The fate of nearly 1,000 displaced Bru families who could not be identified for repatriation still hangs in the balance even as the six relief camps in North Tripura, where they are currently lodged, will be closed down next month.
The Mizoram government plans to initiate the repatriation process by October 2019 even as the hearing of claims and objections of 260 refugees, identified in the second phase but excluded from a citizen’s list of Mizoram, started on Tuesday.
According to official sources, 26,128 displaced Brus, lodged in the relief camps, were re-identified in the second phase as bona fide residents of Mizoram last month, while 350 names were excluded from the list. Later, 90 of them were cleared by officials from the Mizoram home department after scrutiny.
“Yes, officials from the Mizoram home department have initiated the hearing process from yesterday. But what is still a matter of concern is the fate of nearly 1000 families who could not be identified for repatriation as they do not have electoral photo identity cards (EPIC). The Mizoram government is considering only EPIC as the requisite document for identification and subsequent repatriation,” Bruno Msha, the general secretary of the Mizoram Bru Displaced People’s Forum (MBDPF), told The Shillong Times on Wednesday.
Officials from three districts of Mizoram are carrying out the week-long hearing process and subsequent verification.
“There is less time but we are optimistic that things will be sorted out for these 1000 families,” Msha said even as he remained non-committal on what options the forum might take if things do not turn out as hoped.
It may be mentioned that during the first phase of identification in 2016, a total of 32,876 Bru people were classified as bona fide residents of Mizoram.
Thousands of Brus had fled to Tripura in 1997 in the wake of communal tension triggered by the killing of a forest guard by militants inside the Dampa Tiger Reserve.
Efforts were made by the Centre and the governments of Mizoram and Tripura to repatriate the Brus to their home state since 2009, but a majority of them stayed back in the relief camps, citing inadequate rehabilitation package.
