New Delhi: Less than a fortnight after after the Central government announced an agreement with the Mizoram Bru Refugees Displaced Forum (MBRDF) to begin their repatriation after almost 22 years from camps in Tripura to their villages in Mizoram, the Forum has walked out of it “for the moment”.On July 3, the MBRDF signed the agreement in the presence of Union home minister Rajnath Singh, Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb and Mizoram chief minister Lal Thanhawla in New Delhi, as per which as many as 32,876 Bru refugees would head home before September 30 to Kolasib and Mamit districts of Mizoram from Kanchanpur and Panisagar camps in North Tripura. While Singh called it “a major breakthrough” on social media, Deb termed it “the historic agreement” in his tweet.The repatriation, the first phase of which took place in 2010, would have led to the closure of the camps this October which were being run by the Central government since the refugees fled home after ethnic clashes with the majority Mizo community in 1996.However, A. Sawibunga, president of the MBRDF and a signatory to the agreement, has written a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs saying that the Forum is pulling out “due to strong agitation” by the Bru refugees. Local news reports said the Forum office was surrounded by the refugees demanding that they reject the agreement.Reports quoting Kanchanpur SDPO Kiran Kumar said a group of about 500 refugees surrounded the offices, ransacked them and demanded that he sign on a letter rejecting the agreement and inform the authorities about it. He handed over the letter to the sub divisional officer (civil). Home ministry official Mahesh Singla, who is presently in Agartala to visit the camps, was thereafter informed about it, following which he got in touch with New Delhi.Speaking to The Wire from Tripura, Sawibunga said, “The people are not agreeable to the present agreement, so we are out of it for the moment. They want three more points inserted into it: cluster villages with at least 500 families in each one, a development council and the amount of Rs four lakh promised in the agreement to be given at one go in their savings accounts before they move to Mizoram.” As per the July 3 agreement, among other benefits, Rs four lakh would be kept in a fixed deposit in the name of the head of each of the 5,407 families for two years and it can be withdrawn only on the condition that they would have to remain in Mizoram for at least three years in a row.Sawibunga said he had “informal conversations” with “some people in the government” after he wrote the letter, adding, “Giving the money at one go may not be difficult for central government but the other two demands seem not possible. The Mizoram government will have to provide land in the two districts to have cluster villages and it has already expressed its inability to do so. The formation of the development council is a political demand which the state government will have to agree and I don’t see it happening soon.”Though the MBDPF has been demanding more political rights from the Centre as a condition for their repatriation for some time now, the Centre and the Mizoram governments haven’t agreed. Prior to the agreement, the Centre had reportedly warned the refugees that the financial allocation given to the Tripura government for their camps would dry up if they don’t move back to Mizoram soon.Elvis Chorky, a Bru leader who moved to Mizoram during the 2010 repatriation, however, told this correspondent, “People are wondering why they were in such a hurry to sign the agreement in Delhi without consulting them. They should have some discussion with the people first and then signed the agreement. So people are angry, asking the leaders, is this only because the Centre is keeping the assembly elections in mind?” The BJP, putting forward its agenda of “Congress-mukt Bharat”, is eyeing the Mizoram elections to topple the two-term-old Congress government.Chorky said, “All the three demands of our people are important. The cluster villages are to ensure their safety. Some of the places where they were earlier have been lying vacant since, but some have gone into private hands where the majority community is using it as agricultural fields. So the question is, will those lands go back to our people or will they be settled on only the vacant places? This mainly raises the security issue. The point about money at one go is important because what happens if this government changes? Will people get their money as promised? Another point is the development council. People want some political security in the state.”The fresh round of talks that led to the July 3 agreement of the Central and state governments with MBDPF came after three years of negotiations, including a lingering process of the Mizoram government identifying them as its residents based on the 1996 electoral rolls.The communal tension between the Bru and the Mizo communities has been long drawn, leading to the birth of the armed group Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF), and the political wing Bru National Union (BNU), which demanded an autonomous district similar to the Chakmas in Mizoram.The battle lines firmed up in 1995 when the Young Mizo Association and Mizo Students Association opposed the presence of Brus in the state’s electoral rolls, claiming that they are not indigenous to the state. Things took an ugly turn on October 21, 1996, when the BNLF shot dead a Mizo official, triggering ethnic clashes in which many Bru villages were burnt down, pushing them to flee to neighbouring Tripura. They have since been staying at the relief camps in Tripura.