The Centre has not supplied ration and cash dole to Bru refugees living in refugee camps for October, and the displaced people on Thursday threatened to loot godowns saying "the spectre of starvation is looming large over them".
The allowances have been suspended when the repatriation process of the Bru refugees is on.
Altogether 4,447 Bru displaced families, lodged in the relief camps at Kanchanpur and Panisagar sub-divisions of North Tripura district, are scheduled to return to neighbouring Mizoram from where they had fled since 1997 following ethnic clashes.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has stopped all allowances to the displaced Bru persons this month, Kanchanpur Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Abhedananda Baidya told PTI.
"...there will be numbers of casualty due to starvation in next few days as it is already 24 days that the rations and cash-dole has been stopped. The hungry and desperate inmates... do not have any alternative option but to block the main road, looting of Government Godowns etc for their survival [sic]," three Bru organisations wrote to the North Tripura district magistrate on Thursday.
The decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs to stop the relief facilities is "unconstitutional and in violation of human rights" as the repatriation process is scheduled to contune till November 30, the letter said.
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So, the displaced Brus would have to repatriate on "empty stomach", said the letter written by the leaders of the Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum, Bru Tribal Development Society and the Mizoram Bru Indigenous Democratic Movement.
The Centre had made it clear that the relief camps of Bru refugees in Tripura would be closed down and the displaced persons must be repatriated to Mizoram during the ongoing exercise, Special Secretary (internal security), Ministry of Home Affairs, A P Maheshwari, had said on October 16.
Maheswari, however, did not mention any date when the relief camps would be closed down. The repatriation is scheduled to continue till November 30.
Every adult Bru person living in a camp gets Rs 3.50 in cash and 600 grams of rice per day as allowances, while each minor receive Rs 2.50 in cash and 300 grams of rice per day, official sources said adding that they get clothes in every three years.
The Bru leaders urged the government to "withdraw its decision and continue free ration and cash-dole until an amicable solution and the repatriation process is concluded."