Tripura: Protests against Bru rehab turn violent, one killed in police firing
GUWAHATI: One person was killed while five others were injured in Tripura on Saturday when the police opened fire on the protestors who enforced a bandh opposing the decision of the state government and the Centre to rehabilitate displaced Brus (Reangs) in the state.
The incident was reported from the Panisagar sub-division in North Tripura district. Official sources said as the situation was tense, a large number of security personnel had rushed to Panisagar as well as Kanchanpur sub-division, also in North Tripura district.
When the protests on Saturday turned ugly, the police initially used batons and fired tear gas shells to quell the protestors but they retaliated prompting the personnel to open fire in which a youth was killed and five others were injured. According to unverified reports, a jawan was also killed.
“The agitation was in Kanchanpur. They wanted to shift it to the national highway in Panisagar. There was some violence. We are bringing in more forces. Hopefully, it will not escalate,” Panisagar sub-divisional magistrate Lalnunnemi Darlong said.
There was simmering tension at Kanchanpur ever since the Joint Movement Committee (JMC), a group comprising Bengalis and Mizos, had enforced an indefinite bandh on Monday. Later, the tension escalated to Panisagar and other adjoining areas of Kanchanpur.
Recently, the JMC had petitioned the state’s BJP-led government opposing the proposed settlement of 4,900 Bru families or around 34,000 people in Kanchanpur and Panisagar sub-divisions. They feared the settlement of such a large number of people in their areas would cause social imbalance.
Re-emphasizing that they are not against the quadripartite Bru settlement agreement, signed on January 16 this year, they had insisted on equitable distribution of the families in all districts and sub-divisions to avoid negative social, cultural, political, environmental, and ecological impacts.
Allegations galore the district authorities had taken no measures to defuse the tension. The situation worsened after some tribal refugees had allegedly attacked a non-tribal pump operator and taken away the livestock of some non-tribal families.
The authorities had clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC but over 10,000 locals have been staging the protests outside government offices and markets in Kanchanpur since Monday. Official sources said the government was yet to finalise the locations and the number of refugees to be rehabilitated in Kanchanpur.
Over 40,000 Brus had fled their homes in Mizoram in 1997 in the wake of inter-community riots. Ever since then, they have been living in seven relief camps in Tripura. Despite several repatriation processes, only around 5,000 of them returned to Mizoram. As per the quadripartite agreement, signed among Centre, Bru leaders, and Tripura and Mizoram governments, the displaced people will be rehabilitated in Tripura.