AIZAWL/AGARTALA, Aug 26 - Not a single Bru refugee returned to Mizoram on the first day on Saturday of the final repatriation exercise from the six relief camps in North Tripura, officials said.
A senior Home department official of Mizoram Government said that the State Government machinery was waiting to conduct the repatriation, but none of the 32,000-odd refugees from the transit camps in Kanchanpur sub-division of North Tripura turned up to return home.
He said that the State Government would go ahead with the repatriation schedule between August 25 and September 25 even if no one was ready to be repatriated. The schedule has been drawn up by Centre and Governments of Tripura and Mizoram.
Sub-Divisional Police Officer (Kanchanpur) Kiran Kumar said the repatriation could not take off because no one turned up.
�Officials from local administration of Tripura and Mizoram Government waited for refugees with arrangement for repatriation, but they did not come,� Kumar said.
Mizoram Bru Displaced People�s Coordination Committee (MBDPCC) president L Laldingliana said none of the refugees want to return to Mizoram unless the Centre accepts their pending demands which include an Area Development Council (ADC), cluster villages, one-time cash payment, etc.
In the last identification process conducted in November 2016, 32,876 Brus belonging to 5,407 families were treated as bonafide residents of Mizoram who could be repatriated.
Seven phases of repatriation have been held till day but several of them who repatriated returned later.
The Centre was optimistic that the Bru families would return to Mizoram during this final repatriation process after the agreement on July 3 signed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, CMs of Mizoram and Tripura and Mizoram Bru Displaced People�s Forum (MBDPF) chief in Delhi.
In accordance with the agreement, all the Bru refugees were to be repatriated before September 30. The Centre had also said that all the relief camps housing the Bru refugees would be closed down after September 25.
The refugees had rejected the agreement terming it as insufficient. The agreement had also created a rift between Bru refugees with the formation of Mizoram Bru Displaced People�s Coordination Committee (MBDPCC) by people unhappy with the MBDPF�s participation in the agreement.
Nearly 20,000 Bru refugees in Tripura are voters registered in Mizoram, which is set to go to Assembly polls later this year. � PTI
