Only 10,000 Reangs bona fide residents

AIZAWL, March 20: The State government claims to have completed the process of identifying the "legal" Reang residents of Mizoram and have placed the figure at a little over 10,000, reports UNI. With this, the Mizoram administration has literally rubbished the claims made by Tripura that over 31,000 Reangs living in the northern refugee camps belonged to the State. The announcement could have far reaching effects on the demographic profile of the region as Mizoram can now refuse entry to over 20,000 Reangs/Brus who were claiming to be residents of the State. Placing the Reangs under two categories, the State administration claimed that while 10,142 refugees now languishing in Tripura refugee camps were the original residents of Mizoram, the rest had come from Assam, and parts of Tripura itself. According to the State government, while 8,396 Reangs were the residents of the Aizawl district, 1,746 belonging to the southern district of Lunglei. Talking to UNI, Aizawl deputy commissioner C Ropianga claimed that the list prepared by the administration was based on records and not interviews. "Therefore, any Reang who could produce sufficient, documentary evidence on his citizenship would be added to the list," he said, adding that the administration had exhausted all means of identifying more people. In August last year, Agartala had sent a list of 31,600 Reang residents of Mizoram living in refugee camps in Tripura. But, according to the State government, since the list did not mention the details of their villages, subdivisions, Assembly segments and polling station, the administration failed to trace their antecedents. The State Home department then referred the matter to Tripura asking for complete details of the claimants. During 1997-98, several thousand Reangs had fled to Tripura fearing repression from Mizos after a forest game watcher was killed by suspected Reang rebels in October 1997. The Mizoram government has so far maintained that the Reangs were forced to leave Mizoram by the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF), a Reang militant outfit, demanding an autonomous district council for Reangs.