Members of 2,500-odd Bru-Reang tribal families in North Tripura trek 2km every day to collect water from a nea... Read More

NAI SIANG PARA CAMP (NORTH TRIPURA): From four-year-old kids to the elderly, members of 2,500-odd Bru-Reang tribal families queue up every morning to collect water flowing from the nearby hill, a 2 km-trek from the Nai Siang Para Camp in North Tripura, which is home to the refugee tribe.

With no power or water supply, the families, displaced from their own land in Mizoram in 1997, rely on water from the hill even for drinking. It takes five hours to fetch 10 litres of water, the maximum quota for a family per day. Recalling their exodus, a few of them say they were not allowed to even cremate their dead as per Hindu rites as the Mizos forced burial.

But after 23 years of ordeal and forced to live as refugees in their own country, there is hope on the horizon for them all to begin life afresh. The Modi government has signed a quadripartite agreement with the governments of Tripura, Mizoram and Bru-Reang representatives for full settlement of the tribe, for which the Centre has allocated a package of Rs 600 crore under which all those displaced will be rehabilitated in the next two years.

Sunil Jamatia, a Bru-Reang leader who was one of the interfaces in signing the agreement, is grateful to Union home minister Amit Shah for reaching out to all stake-holders to resolve the issue. “The sufferings of the Bru-Reang never bothered anyone in Delhi. Amit Shah used to call community leaders so that the rehab package could be finalised. We are grateful to Shah and PM Modi,” he says.

Some members of the community are still uncertain about when their lives would take a turn for the better. Santir Bazaar MLA Pramod Reag says it will take at least six months to initiate the process. Bru-Reang is the second largest tribe after Debarma in Tripura and has a sizeable presence in Mizoram too. Over 4000 people have been repatriated to their native places in Mizoram in seven phases but the remaining chose to stay back in Tripura fearing attacks by Mizos.

The children from the camp have just one Sarv Shiksha school which caters only up to Class V. “Majority of the children don’t go to school. The school has strength of 400, but there 2000 children in the camp,” rues Bipin Kumar Reang, one of the Bru-Reang rights activists. The community, comprising largely Shaivites and Vaishnavites, recently developed a Ram Temple in the camp area.

Vanlal Zoni (40)recalls how last rites of her relative could not be performed due to opposition of Christian Mizo community. “Mizo youths used to barge into our houses, misbehave with women and indulged in violence if any one resisted,” says Zoni, who recalls it took over a week’s walk for them to reach the safer area in north Tripura. In 1997, over 34,000 migrated to the North Tripura district and have been kept at seven refugee camps since then.

