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300 houses set ablaze after Mizo youth killed
5,000 displaced people have taken shelter in nearby areas as paramilitary forces deployed to control violent mobs
- IANS
- Published: 00:00 November 17, 2009
Aizawl/Agartala: Paramilitary forces were deployed as tension prevailed in southern Mizoram and northern Tripura yesterday after over 300 houses of Reang tribals were set ablaze, following the gunning down of a Mizo youth last week, officials here said.
"Central paramilitary Assam Rifles troopers and Tripura and Mizoram armed police have been deployed in the trouble-torn southern Mizoram and northern Tripura areas to prevent any fresh hostility between Mizos and Reang tribals," an official said.
Violent mobs have set fire to more than 300 houses of Reang tribals in 15 villages under Mamit and Kolashib districts in southern Mizoram since Saturday, displacing over 5,000 people. The displaced tribals have taken shelter in adjacent southern Assam and Jampui in northern Tripura.
"The ethnic violence erupted after the militants shot dead an 18-year-old Mizo youth at Bungthuam village, near the Tripura border, in southern Mizoram on Friday," Mizoram Home Minister R. Lalzirliana said.
The youth was shot dead when he and his friends were collecting pig fodder in a forest area. The two gunmen fled the spot soon after the incident.
"It's a little difficult to prevent arson everywhere as the Reang tribal settlements are scattered in inaccessible areas and the miscreants went in groups on jungle roads to torch the villages," Lalzirliana told reporters in Aizawl late on Sunday.
Warning the troublemakers, Lalzirliana said those who disrupt peace would be firmly dealt with and brought to book.
Senior civil and police officials have been camping in the mixed populated Tripura villages adjacent to Mizoram since Saturday.
"Both Assam Rifles and Tripura police in northern Tripura are on alert to prevent any eventuality, following the ethnic violence and exodus of Reang tribals from Mizoram," north Tripura district magistrate Samarjit Bhowmik said.
Mizoram police chief Lalrokhuma Pachuau has been maintaining close contact with his Tripura counterpart Pranay Sahay to tackle the situation jointly.
"Security has been tightened in the Mizo dominated areas in Jampui in north Tripura," Bhowmik added.
Over 35,000 Reang (locally called Bru) tribal refugees have been living in six north Tripura camps since 1997 after they fled Mizoram, following ethnic clashes with the majority Mizos.
The tripartite meeting held in Aizawl on November 4, between representatives of the central and Mizoram governments and tribal refugees, failed to resolve the 12-year deadlock to repatriate 35,000 Reang migrants from Tripura to Mizoram.
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