Bru resettlement in Tripura: Local Bengali, Mizo body mulling road-rail blockade
Bru resettlement issue in Tripura seems to run in to rough weather as the Joint Movement Committee (JMC) - a platform of local Bengali and Mizo people - is mulling over intensifying the agitation and is likely to block the national highway and the rail services to scale up pressure on the Government on Bru rehabilitation. Even as JMC-sponsored indefinite strike at Kanchanpur sub-division in North Tripura protesting mass resettlement of Bru refugees in the sub-division is continuing to cripple normal life since November 16 last, a meeting between JMC leaders and administration held on Friday reportedly remained inconclusive.
Sources close to the agitators said, preparatory meetings are in progress at different places to intensify the agitation against the mass Bru resettlement. It is learnt from sources, the JMC will call for rail and road blockade in different parts of the North Tripura district very soon – “If things go as planned, from tomorrow, we will block NH as well as block trains”, sources added.
Highly placed sources in administration also confirmed that agitators were planning to disrupt rail services and roads in the North District. However, JMC leaders could not be contacted to ascertain the road-rail blockade programme.
Meanwhile, in a bid to end the ongoing indefinite strike, the District Magistrate of the North district held a meeting with the leaders of the JMC which remained inconclusive, sources claimed.
According to sources, the DM of North District urged the JMC leaders to withdraw the ongoing indefinite strike at Kanchanpur. He assured the leaders that Bru refugees would be resettled in all the eight districts across the State. The JMC leaders reportedly insisted on written assurance from the DM relating to rehabilitation of Brus across the State which the DM declined. As a result, the meeting ended without solving the ongoing impasse.
The State Government is maintaining a silence over the agitation by the JMC while both the Congress and CPI-M have also voiced their concern and demanded that interests of locals should not be compromised under any circumstances for implementation of Bru rehabilitation pact. Over the last couple days, support for the JMC is pouring in from other places of North District and today inhabitants of a village in Kailashahar under Unakoti district too came out and protested Government plan to rehabilitate Brus in that village.