AIZAWL, Oct 5 - The next round of Bru repatriation will begin from November 2 next. This decision was taken by Mizoram Government after efforts on several occasions to repatriate displaced Brus locally known as Reangs who are lodged in six relief camps in north Tripura had failed.
About 628 Bru families are expected to be repatriated in the next round of repatriation.
The first effort to repatriate them in 2009, was not only scuttled by the murder of one Zarzokima of Bungthuam village three days earlier, but triggered another round of exodus.
The effort to repatriate 3,500 Bru families during June to September 2015 failed as not a single Bru came forward in their respective relief camps before Mizoram officials, to be identified as bona fide residents of Mizoram.
Though a number of Bru families returned to Mizoram during repeated repatriation process and some of them returned on their own, a sizeable number of families remained in the neighbouring State.
It is worth mentioning here that the relationship between Mizos and Brus has not been going well in the past 15 years.
Hundreds of Brus had left Mizoram in 1997 and in 2009. The first case was triggered when Bru militants murdered two Mizos who were forest guards on October 21, 1997. The second case happened after a 17-year-old Mizo boy was killed by Brus near Bungthuam village on November 13, 2009. When the Brus left Mizoram they had driven out some Mizos in villages of Sakhan Hill Range in Tripura like Sakhan Serhmun, Sakhan Tlangsang, Sakhan Tualsen and Upper Dosda which had kicked up much ruckus in Mizoram then.
Meanwhile, four years ago, head count conducted by the MBDPF found that there were 31,703 Brus in the relief camps belonging to 5,448 families who were bona fide residents of Mizoram.
