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No more Bru repatriation, reiterates Mizoram Govt

By The Assam Tribune

AIZAWL, Nov 9 - The Mizoram Government has decided that the ongoing Bru repatriation process should be the last one and no more such exercises would be carried out, officials said today.

Over 4,000 Bru displaced families, lodged in the relief camps in North Tripura district, are scheduled to return to neighbouring Mizoram during the repatriation process, which commenced on October 3 and is scheduled to be completed by November 30.

A meeting of the Mizoram Council of Ministers held on Friday decided not to conduct another repatriation exercise of Bru repatriation after completion of the ongoing exercise, the officials said.

The repatriation issue was discussed in the meeting, which was chaired by Chief Minister Zoramthanga and attended by all the ministers of the State, the officials said.

Former Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee president Pradyot Manikya had visited the Bru relief camps during the road blockade staged by the relief camp inmates on Wednesday and made a statement that the Tripura Government should allow the Brus (also known as Reangs in Tripura) to remain in the State.

�Tripura has enough place to accommodate Reang people. This is your land and nobody can force you to quit from here,� the former Tripura State Congress chief had said while stating that the Reang people, who lost their land due to the Dumbur hydropower plant at Amarpur subdivision in Tripura, migrated to some parts of Mizoram.

Earlier, the last meeting of the Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) held in Delhi on September 6 had decided that the ninth and final round of repatriation of 4,447 Bru families lodged at six relief camps in North Tripura district would commence from October.

The Centre had made it clear that the relief camps of Bru refugees in Tripura would be closed down and the displaced persons must be repatriated to Mizoram during the ongoing exercise, Special Secretary (Internal Security), Ministry of Home Affairs, AP Maheshwari, had said on October 16.

This ninth round of Bru repatriation has been termed the �final� one by the government.

The Bru community is among the 21 Scheduled Tribes in the country and they are scattered across Assam, Mizoram and Tripura. � PTI

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