TRIBALS – 2007 - Indian Social Institute

payments will be paid to the next of kin of the 12 tribals who were killed in the police firing. One ofthe 13 families had accepted the ex gratia amount earlier. It was also decided that all those whohad sustained injuries in the police firing will also be paid ex gratia amount of Rs. 50,000 each. Asregards the withdrawal of cases registered against the tribals, the authorities assured that theGovernment has taken a lenient view and the cases were being reviewed. Some cases will bewithdrawn as per the law. The district administration had been desperately trying to win over thetribals to put an end to the road blockade agitation as the High Court had fixed March 9 as thedeadline for lifting the blockade. The High Court had passed the order while hearing a publicinterest petition on the issue. Although the Janmanch has said it would continue its agitationagainst displacement in the area, they have told the administration to continue the dialogueprocess till their demands were fulfilled (The Hindu 6/3/07)Tribal refugees continue hunger strike in Tripura (6)Hundreds of tribal refugees, who have been on a hunger strike in Tripura seeking repatriation toMizoram, refused on Monday to call off their agitation, despite appeals by the State Government."We shall continue our fast-unto-death agitation till our problem is resolved permanently," saidElvis Chorkhy, president of the Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum. Some 300 tribal refugeeslaunched the indefinite hunger strike on Friday after resorting to a week-long sit-in demonstrationnear the Raj Bhavan here. Over 33,000 Reang (locally called 'Bru') tribal refugees have beenliving in six north Tripura camps since October 1997 after they fled Mizoram following ethnicclashes with the majority Mizos. An all-party delegation from the Tripura Assembly led by ChiefMinister Manik Sarkar met the striking refugee leaders and requested them to withdraw theiragitation. Earlier on Monday, the Assembly passed a unanimous resolution urging the refugees towithdraw their stir. "The Tripura Government, all the political parties in the State and the UnionGovernment are sympathetic towards your cause and struggle. New Delhi has taken certainsteps to solve your problems," Sarkar told the agitating refugee leaders. The Chief Minister saidUnion Home Secretary VK Duggal and Joint Secretary (Northeast Affairs) Naveen Verma werearriving in Aizawl Thursday and then visit Agartal Tuesday to discuss the refugee crisis. TripuraChief Secretary Shashi Prakash also held a series of talks over phone with the union homeministry and requested it to take urgent steps to end the crisis.Khagen Das, Lok Sabha memberfrom Tripura, also met the Reang tribal leaders. In April 2005, the Mizoram government and themilitant Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) signed an agreement after 13 rounds of talks tosolve the decade-old ethnic crisis, leading to the surrender of about 1,040 militants of the BNLFand Bru Liberation Front of Mizoram (BLFM).Both the rebel outfits have been fighting for settingup an autonomous council for the refugees. (Pioneer 6/3/07)Orissa tribals lift highway blockade (6)Bhubaneswar, March 6: Bisthapan Birodhi Janamanch, the tribal organisation that has beenspearheading the blockage of the Daitary-Paradip national highway since January 2, 2006, hasfinally agreed to relent from its 14-month long agitational activities. The Janamanch leaders onTuesday received the chopped off palms of their relatives and announced to lift the road blockadeon Wednesday. As per the practice, the doctors — who conducted post-mortem on the body ofthe police firing victims, had dismembered the palms of the slain tribals as their identity could notbe ascertained then. Although efforts were made earlier to return the palms of the victims to theirkith and kin, the latter had disowned the same saying the chopped off organs did not belong thekilled tribals. The ice was broken when the much awaited dialogue between agitating tribals ofKaliga Nagar and Jajpur collector Arabinda Padhi took place on Monday for an amicable solutionto the crisis arising after the January 2 police firing incident. Despite road blockade, theJanamanch has, however, been allowing vehicular traffic, except trucks, to ply on the road for thelast couple of months. All ground levelling and construction activities of the proposed Tata steelplant in the industrial complex area had been brought to a halt by the triabl agitation. It may bementioned here that the firing incident took place when the tribals opposing construction ofboundary walls of Tata steel project clashed with the police. Tata Steel, after signingmemorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state government, is facing tough time to make upwith the agitating triabls, who are opposing to hand over the land in favour of the steel company.After two futile attempts over the last week, the district administration was successful in getting