IANS
Agartala, January 29
[dropcap]M[/dropcap]izoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla has said his government is keen to take back the Bru refugees sheltering in makeshift camps in Tripura for the past 17 years.
“We are always ready to take back the refugees from Tripura and rehabilitate them in their villages. Those refugees, who have returned to their villages, were rehabilitated and are living peacefully and satisfactorily,” Lal Thanhawla told reporters at Jampui in north Tripura Tuesday.He said: “Some people are impeding the repatriation of refugees. Those refugees who have returned to their homes have got financial assistance under the central government package.”
Lal Thanhawla, who came to Jampui, 215 km from here, to attend the silver jubilee function of the NGO, the Young Mizo Association as the chief guest, urged the refugees to return to their homes and lead a normal life.
Addressing the association function, he said that some inimical forces are trying to disturb peace and ethnic harmony in Mizoram.
Over 36,000 tribal refugees, locally called ‘Bru’, have been living in seven makeshift camps in northern Tripura for the past 17 years 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 union home ministry officials.
However, the process got stalled after that.
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has told both the prime minister and the union home minister that “continuous presence for over 17 years of refugees from Mizoram has been a matter of concern for Tripura”.
The refugees have been insisting that without a formal agreement between the central government, the state governments of Mizoram and Tripura and the tribal leaders, their return to homes and subsequent rehabilitation will remain uncertain.
NGOs want all Bru
inmates return by Feb
A meeting of major non-governmental organisations (NGOs) urged the Centre and the state governments of Mizoram and Tripura to ensure that all the inmates of the Bru relief camps in Tripura return to Mizoram by the end of February.
In a press statement issued here today, the NGOs - Young Mizo Association (YMA), Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl (MHIP)or Mizo Women’s Association, Mizoram Upa Pawl (MUP) or Mizoram Elders Association and Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP) or Mizo students federation said “that the relief camps were breeding grounds for armed goons indulging in a series of murder, abduction and extortion.”
“Those who were remaining in the camps making different pretexts should be repatriated on or before February end,” the statement said, adding that appropriate authorities should take action expeditiously.
The statement said that the NGOs would take steps to ensure that those who refuse to return to Mizoram after February were deleted from the Mizoram voters lists.
The NGOs also implored the state government to make concerted efforts for the release of Deep Mondal, who has been kept in captivity by Bru goons inside Bangladesh since November 23, 2013 even after the release of other two hostages on January 21 last.
