The economically and socially backward Bru (or Reang) tribals lost their homes in an ethnic riot with Mizos in Mamit and Kolosib districts of Mizoram in July 1997 after the militant Bru National Liberation Front demanded a Bru Development Council, comprising Bru-dominated areas within the state.
The controversy over the possible return of the over 34,000 Bru refugees, lodged in six relief camps in North Tripura, to their homeland has been raging for the past 12 years. Sources in Aizawl said the two sides stuck to their positions during the two-day tripartite talks.
The Centre and the state government insisted that each refugee family would be paid a rehabilitation package of Rs 70,000 and resettled in scattered colonies under Mizoram’s Mamit, Kolosib and Lunglei districts.
The Bru Rehabilitation Committee president, Elvis Chorkhy, who led a seven-member delegation to the talks, said the refugees should be resettled in compact habitats in Lunglei and Chimtuipui districts in southern Mizoram and each family should be given a compensation of Rs 88,500.
The meeting was attended by senior officials of the Union home ministry and Mizoram’s Congress government and Bru leaders. The director in the Union home ministry, R.R. Jha, led a miniscule central delegation to the conference.
Lalmalsawma, the home secretary and representative of Mizoram government, today regretted that the two sides could not break the deadlock. Mizoram home minister Lalzirliana said the talks had failed at a time when Delhi had assured the government that a grant of Rs 25.8 crore would be advanced to the state to help resettle the refugees.
Government officials were poised to execute a massive logistical plan to ensure the return of the refugees from their camps in Tripura’s Kanchanpur in buses and trucks from November 16 to end the exercise by March 31.