The voter enlistment forms duly filled in by the displaced Bru people in the relief camps of the neighbouring Tripura have gone missing following a burglary at the election office of Mizoram's Mamit district, a top police officer said here today.
The burglary comes at a time when the final phase of repatriation of Bru families from Tripura to Mizoram is under progress.
The district administration in Mamit has filed an FIR in the matter and an investigation is being carried out to solve the case, Superintendent of Police H L Thangzuala said.
"In an FIR filed on August 24, the administration said that the election office of Mamit was burgled the night before and crucial documents have gone missing," he said.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been constituted, with Sub-Divisional Police Officer as the chief, to probe into the complaint, the SP said, adding that no arrest has been made in the case so far.
Thousands of Bru refugees from Mizoram fled to Tripura after ethnic clashes of 1997. The clashes broke out after a forest official was killed by Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) militants.
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Over 32,000 Bru people have been living in six temporary camps in North Tripura district since then.
The Centre, in association with the governments of Mizoram and Tripura, had been repatriating the displaced Brus in phases.
Mizoram, the last remaining Congress bastion in the northeast, is due for polls this December.
The election officials from the state had recently visited the refugee camps in Tripura for updating the voters' list amid protests by civil societies in the state, who insisted that the revision process be carried out after the repatriation process.
The officials, who returned from Tripura on August 19, had been working to ascertain the genuineness of the claims made in the enlistment forms, a source in the district administration said, adding that the process to update the electoral roll now hangs in balance.