Image Courtesy:telegraphindia.com
At least 35 Bru refugees were booked under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, and Section 188 of the IPC (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) for violating the lockdown, reported the Telegraph India.
The North district administration of Tripura has registered a complaint against the 35 Bru refugees for entering Tripura through a jungle from Mizoram on April 15 and April 16, even as the lockdown was in place. The Tripura police have now intensified their vigil and deployed more personnel along the Tripura-Mizoram border.
A senior police officer told The Telegraph, “A case has been registered against 35 Bru people under the Disaster Management Act, 2005. All the 35 Brus entered Tripura on April 17 violating the lockdown. They bypassed all checkgates and came through the jungles from Mizoram. When they reached their camp at Naisingpara, only then we came to know. They said they had approval from a local council of Mizoram which is not valid. We have put them under quarantine at Kanchanpur ST boys’ hostel of Kanchanpur sub-division of the North district.”
District Magistrate Raval H Kumar said that the refugees were screened, were kept under quarantine and were asymptomatic.
He said, “These Bru inmates are from Naisingpara Bru camp at Kanchanpur sub-division of North Tripura. They are migrant labourers working in Aizawl. Now they are under quarantine and we will take legal action against all.” Scroll.in reported that the police informed that the 35 refugees were put under quarantine at a hostel in Kanchanpur sub-division of the North district.
Covid-19 nodal officer, Dr. Deep Kumar Debbarma said, “We have collected some samples from the Brus. The results are yet to come. And the second patient of the state who was found in Damcherra of North district is stable now.”
The second patient of the state was found in Damcherra village of the North district which is very close to the Mizoram border. According to data from the Union Health Ministry, the state currently only 1 active case up until now, with one person having recovered and no Covid-19 deaths have been reported from the state.
In January, a quadripartite agreement was signed between the Centre and State governments of Tripura and Mizoram and representatives of Bru organization, Mizoram Bru Displaced people’s Forum, allowing some 35,000 Bru tribals who had been displaced from Mizoram, to settle permanently in Tripura. The Brus were forced to leave Mizoram after facing ethnic violence there had been residing in Tripura in six relief camps in Tripura.
The Brus, also known as Reangs, are spread over the states of Tripura, Mizoram and southern Assam. Brus of Mizoram converted to Christianity, while Brus of Assam and Tripura are mostly Hindu. In 1995, clashes with the majority Mizos, led to the demand that Brus be removed from Mizoram’s electoral rolls as they were perceived to be non-indigenous. This had led to an armed movement by a Bru outfit, Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) which led to the killing of a forest official in Mizoram. This in turn to retaliatory ethnic violence which saw more than 40,000 Brus fleeing to Tripura where they were houses in six relief camps in Kanchanpur and Panisagar subdivisions.
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