Bru rebels target tribal group

AGARTALA, March 3: In a new twist to the current insurgency problem, the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) militants, comprising Reang tribals living in Tripura and Mizoram, have turned against Tripuri tribals living in Hailakandi subdivision of Barak valley in Assam. Altogether seven Tripuri tribal families comprising 46 members have recently taken shelter in Gandacherra subdivision of Dhalai district, after being driven away from Durgapur village under Lalghat police station of Hailakandi district. These families are eking out a sub-human living in remote Bhagirath para village of Gandacherra subdivision. Sources said more than 200 families of Tripuri tribals have been forced to leave their homes in Katlicherra, Noonacherra and Lalghat areas of Hailakandi subdivision. These families told officials in Gandacherra subdivision that following reports that NLFT militants were persecuting backward Reang tribals in Tripura and trying to forcibly convert them to Christianity and register them as Tripuri tribes, the armed BNLF activists turned against the Tripuris in interior areas of Hailakandi subdivision in Assam's Barak Valley and drove away more than 200 families. The refugee families said tension had been simmering in interior areas of Hailakandi subdivision since July last year, when NLFT militants launched an attack on a BNLF camp in the Thangnan area under Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh and killed 12 BNLF activists. The situation worsened as reports continued to pour into the areas that Reang tribals were being persecuted in various ways by the NLFT. A large number of Reang youth immediately joined the BNLF and issued an ultimatum to all Tripuri tribal groups living there that unless they left their homes, they would be massacred. Fearing organised attacks, the Tripuri families fled their homes. They said many families had entered Chittagong Hill Tracts as well. The seven families that entered Gandacherra are currently surviving on wild vegetation. Official sources here said that details of the issue were not yet available but they would get in touch with the Hailakandi district administration. But sources expressed concern over the growing menace of BNLF militancy and the possibility of influx into Tripura. "We are already overburdened with 35,000 Reang tribal refugees from Mizoram, who entered the state in October 1997, and cannot take even one more," a source added. However, the sources admitted that the main cause of worry was the possibility of clashes between the BNLF and the NLFT in Tripura's hilly areas and its inevitable fallout on relations among various tribal groups of the state. The Reangs are the second largest tribal group in Tripura.