Bru resettlement issue: Heavy security deployed in North Tripura as protesters block national highway

Clashes broke out between Tripura police officers and locals of Dolubari village of North Tripura district on Saturday over the proposed rehabilitation of Bru refugees from Mizoram. Protesters set hearth to automobiles and blocked the nationwide freeway which led police officers to fireside tear fuel shells to be able to disperse the protesters.

Several native organisations beneath the Joint Movement Committee (JMC) have been protesting towards the resettlement of Bru-Reang refugees in Kanchanpur sub-division and so they had demanded that the state authorities resettle the members of the displaced group equally amongst Tripura’s eight districts. They had additionally known as for a districtwide shutdown on November 16.

The Brus are a displaced group who’ve been dwelling throughout a number of aid camps in Tripura and Mizoram since 1997 after ethnic clashes broke out between Mizo tribes and Brus. Close to 30,000 Bru tribals had fled the state as a result of tensions in Mizoram.

The course of to resettle the Bru group had begun in 2009 by the governments of Tripura and Mizoram however didn’t lead to any success. In November 2018 Centre determined to resettle Bru refugees in Mizoram however as a consequence of protests by the Bru group that plan was too left unimplemented.

In 2020 a contemporary settlement was signed which mentioned the Brus is not going to be pressured to return to Mizoram. The Centre has additionally sanctioned a Rs 600 crore rehabilitation package deal to assist resettle the displaced group and together with Tripura authorities determined to rehabilitate the Brus throughout North Tripura, Dhalai, Unakoti, Sipahijala and Khowai districts.

The locals protesting towards the resettlement have complained that the federal government is making an attempt to resettle all 6,000 displaced households within the Kanchanpur sub-division itself. Speaking to PTI, JMC chairman Zairemthiama Pachuau mentioned that regardless of assurances that no more than 1,500 households can be settled within the space the numbers have now gone up. He mentioned, “The government is trying to settle 6,000 families. If they go ahead with this, the entire sub-division will be affected environmentally, ecologically, socially and demographically which is not acceptable.”