IPFT MLA Threatens to Resign if Bru Refugee Crisis is not Solved Immediately

Agartala, November 3, 2019:

Prem Kumar Reang, an IPFT MLA from the Kanchanpur constituency in North Tripura, has threatened to resign from his post if the Government does not sort out the Bru refugee crisis 'immediately'.

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Prem Kumar Reang is an MLA from Kanchanpur, where all the Bru refugee camps are situated. The central Government has stopped the ration commodities' supply in refugee camps, much to the dismay of the Brus living there since 1997. They agitating Brus blocked the Anandabazar-Dashda road since October 31, after people in the camps started dropping dead, allegedly of starvation.

The IPFT MLA said, “I am from the same reang community, and my people are dying in starvation. Therefore, I must speak up.”

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He said that the Reangs will return to Mizoram, but they need to be fed first. The situation has become alarming in Kanchanpur subdivision, where the Government has imposed curfews in some places.

The repatriation process has been initiated to bring back 4,447 Bru families living in the Tripura relief camps since 1997.

The Centre has approved Rs 350 crore for the ninth phase of repatriation and the amount covers transportation and rehabilitation package expenses, which include Rs 5,000 per month for each resettled Bru family in Mizoram and free ration for them for two years.

The vexed Bru problem started when the Bru people started demanding a separate autonomous district council by carving out areas of western Mizoram adjoining Bangladesh and Tripura in September, 1997.

The situation was made worse by the murder of a forest guard in the Dampa Tiger Reserve in western Mizoram by Bru National Liberation Front insurgents on October 21, 1997.

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