GUWAHATI: The Centre’s decision to resettle the displaced Brus of Mizoram in neighbouring Tripura has met with an opposition.
The Nagarik Suraksha Mancha (NSM), an organisation of mostly Bengalis displaced from erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) after Partition and the Mizo Convention, have petitioned Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb expressing their opposition to the proposed settlement of the Brus in North Tripura district.
The NSM feared the Brus’ settlement in the area could cause severe demographic imbalance, crisis of land, social disturbance, communal conflict and damage to the environment.
“The historical, social and circumstantial aspects of the migration of the Mizoram Reangs to Tripura and their subsequent anti-social activities after their arrival demand for total avoidance of their settlement in Kanchanpur Sub-Division,” the NSM said in a memorandum submitted to the CM.
It warned that it would call for an indefinite strike in the sub-division if the government executed the plan of resettlement.
The state government has already identified places to resettle the Bru refugees who are living in six relief camps in the state. Over 40,000 Brus had fled to Tripura from Mizoram in 1998 in the wake of their riots with the Mizos. Over the past few years, around 5,000 of them returned to Mizoram.
The Centre had signed the Bru pact with Bru leaders besides Tripura and Mizoram governments last year. It was the Tripura CM who had suggested to Union Home Minister Amit Shah that the Brus be resettled in Tripura.