Brus living in Tripura relief camps demand Scheduled Tribe status

AGARTALA

Brus lodged in relief camps of North Tripura district since 1997 have demanded permanent residential and Scheduled Tribe certificates during the ongoing process of their resettlement in Tripura, an umbrella organisation of the displaced people said.

The Tripura government has already started the process for rehabilitating 33,000 displaced Brus from neighbouring Mizoram, an official said.

Thousands of the Bru community people have been living in relief camps in two sub-divisions of North Tripura district since 1997. They had fled Mizoram to reach the neighbouring state because of ethnic clashes.

Bruno Msha, the general secretary of Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples Forum (MBDPF), in a letter to the Tripura Chief Secretary, Manoj Kumar, this week has demanded issuance of ST and permanent residence certificates for the Brus.

Meanwhile, the Joint Movement Committee (JMC) of Kanchanpur sub-division in North Tripura district has decided to launch an indefinite protest against the government’s decision to settle around 6,000 displaced Bru families in the sub-division.

The JMC, comprising Nagarik Surakhsa Mancha and Mizo Convention of the sub-division, had organised a series of protests demanding that the Brus be settled in all the eight districts of Tripura.

Dr Zairemthiama Pachuau, chairman of the Committee, told reporters, “We had a meeting with the district magistrate of North Tripura District and we received some kind of assurance that maximum 1,500 families will settle here.

“But now they are trying to settle 6,000 families. If they go ahead with this, the entire sub-division will be affected environmentally, ecologically, socially and demographically which is not acceptable.”

The first attempt to repatriate the Brus from Tripura was made in November 2009. The Centre, along with the governments of Tripura and Mizoram, had been trying to repatriate them to their home state over the past decade, with little success. (PTI)