Mizoram CM Lal Thanhawla meets Rajnath, discusses Bru leaders issue

Leaders of the Bru community in the camps did not accept the arrangements made for their repatriation and continued to make fresh demands and conditions

Aizawl, May 31: Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla has told Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh that the latest demands of the Bru leaders lodged in the six relief camps in Tripura would not be considered by his government, an official statement on Wednesday said.

The statement said that Lal Thanhawla met Singh in Delhi on Tuesday and said that if the Centre accepts the new demands of the Bru leaders, those who had returned to Mizoram should also benefit.

The chief minister informed the Centre that the state government pleaded with the Brus not to leave Mizoram during the communal tension in 1997 and efforts were made repeatedly to bring the bona fide Mizoram residents to return.

"Leaders of the Bru community in the camps did not accept the arrangements made for their repatriation and continued to make fresh demands and conditions," he said, adding that the selfish leaders benefited by remaining in the relief camps and threatened those who wanted to be repatriated.

Lal Thanhawla also asked Singh to provide financial assistance for erecting more border police outposts in the border areas as the state is sandwiched between Myanmar and Bangladesh with which it shares 404 and 319 kilometres international border respectively.

PTI