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An Election Commission decision to conduct a special summary revision of electoral lists in Mizoram has triggered protests and a court case over the inclusion of names of tribals who had fled to neighbouring Tripura almost two decades ago.
Around 31,300 Reang tribals, who locally call themselves “Bru”, have been living in seven makeshift camps in northern Tripura for the past 19 years after they fled following ethnic trouble post the killing of a Mizo forest officer in Mamit district.
An official of the department said:
The Mizoram Bru Displaced People’s Forum (MBDPF), the lone representative of the tribal refugees, is officially unaware about the special summary revision of electoral lists in Mizoram.
MBDPF general secretary Bruno Msha told IANS over phone from Kanchanpur in northern Tripura that the Mizoram government has told Union Home Ministry officials that they would start taking back the refugees only from November, by which time the vital procedures of the revision of rolls would be over.
Msha also said that the Mizoram government and the Union Home Ministry are yet to officially inform them that the repatriation of Reang refuges from Tripura to Mizoram would start from November.
He said Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla had also written to the Election Commission to keep out the names of the Reang tribals from the electoral list as they had been staying outside the state for many years.
Meanwhile, the Young Mizo Association (YMA) and the Mizo Students Federation (MSF), the two most powerful youth bodies in Mizoram, have been asking the Election Commission to delete the names of the tribals staying in Tripura since October 1997.
The Tripura government has been asking the Centre and the Mizoram government to take back the refugees at the earliest as serious socio-economic and law and order problems have cropped up in the state.
Refugee leader Bruno Msha said the MBDPF has been demanding financial assistance of Rs 150,000 per repatriated family, free rations for every repatriated family for two years, cultivable land, a political settlement of the ethnic problem and adequate security.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh, accompanied by his deputy Kiren Rijiju, had visited the refugee camps in North Tripura in February last year and urged the Mizoram government and the refugees to end the stalemate.
(This article has been edited for length and published in an arrangement with IANS)
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Published: 22 Sep 2016,06:38 PM IST