South Asia Terrorism Portal

INDIA

Tripura: Bru Conundrum Persists
Giriraj Bhattacharjee
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
 

According to a November 30, 2020 report, since the signing of the January 16, 2020, agreement regarding permanent settlement of around 32,000 displaced Bru tribals from Mizoram in Tripura State, protests and violent clashes have erupted in Tripura among the Bengali and Mizo groups of the State. Some incidents in November include:

November 16: Several thousand people, including women and children staged rallies and demonstrations in the Kanchanpur sub-division of North Tripura District, protesting against the government's decision to rehabilitate the Bru tribal refugees in Tripura.

November 17: Bru tribals allegedly attacked 75 Bengali families who supported the indefinite strike against the settlement of displaced Brus in Kanchanpur (Tripura), lifting their domestic animals, destroying agricultural produce and threatening the villagers.

November 17: A protest rally was staged in Kanchanpur demanding exemplary punishment to the Bru tribal perpetrators who attacked Bengali families in Kanchanpur earlier in the day.

More worryingly, on November 21, 2020, protestors from Joint Movement Committee (JMC), a group of mostly Bengali settlers, blocked National Highway 8 in the Panisagar sub-division of North Tripura District against the resettlement of Bru-Reang refugees from Mizoram in the Kanchanpur and Panisagar sub-divisions of North Tripura District. The violence by protestors led to the death of Biswajit Debbarma, a Tripuri tribal and a fireman, and injuries to another 22 persons, including Police and fire service personnel, and government officials. Personnel of the Tripura State Rifles (TSR) later opened fire at the protesters, resulting in the death of Srikanth Das (47), a Bengali settler.

On December 3, 2020, Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma, Chairman, The Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA), a political party which claims to represent indigenous tribes, served a seven-day ultimatum to the Tripura Government to arrest the people involved in the killing of the fireman failing which a massive movement will be launched in the state. He had warned, “The way Biswajit Debbarma was injured is inhumane. If the government fails to take action against those responsible for the crime, TIPRA will take its own course of action.”

On December 5, 2020, Police arrested Debu Malakar (25), a Bengali settler, suspected to be involved in the November 21, 2020, violence that led to the death of Tripura Fire Service employee, Biswajit Debbarma.  

Deb Barman welcomed the arrest of the suspect on December 5, but at the same time dubbed the action as insufficient, since several people were seen beating the fireman in a clip that went viral on social media.

The State Government, meanwhile, is trying to contain the fallout of the November 21 violence.

On November 30, 2020, the Deputy Chief Minister of Tripura, Jishnu Dev Varma, held a meeting with the leaders of TIPRA, as well as of the Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples Forum (MBDPF), which represent Bru people displaced from Mizoram, to discuss the rehabilitation process in the State. Bruno Msha, General Secretary of MBDPF, stated, after the meeting, “We demand initiative to build houses for the resettlement of families… places have been identified, and we have agreed to rehabilitate there.”

On November 24, 2020, Tripura Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath mentioned that land had been identified for the resettlement of Bru refugees in nine subdivisions – Kanchanpur, Panisagar, Longtharai Valley, Ambassa, Khowai, Kailashahar, Dharmanagar and Sonamura – in six different Districts of Tripura.

However, according to a December 1, 2020, report, the Bru people displaced from Mizoram has declined to be rehabilitated in small groups scattered across Tripura and have made it clear to the Tripura government that they want to be concentrated in the Kanchanpur Subdivision of North Tripura District. Bru refugee leader Bruno Msha asserted, on November 30, “We have stuck to our demand that at least 50 per cent of our displaced people must be settled in Kanchanpur Subdivision.”

Significantly, the State’s population density is 350 persons per square kilometers, next only to Assam (in Northeast India), with 398. High population density makes settlement difficult.

On November 23, 2020, State Government leaders and officials also met the agitating JMC leaders (comprising mostly Bengalis) after November 21 incident, as JMC had given a call for an indefinite agitation against Bru settlements.  

On November 24, JMC 'convener' Sushanta Baruah, observed,

The Bru impasse was declared to be 'settled' after the signing of the January 16, 2020, agreement. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had then remarked,

Previously, on July 3, 2018, an agreement had been signed for the repatriation of the Bru tribals to Mizoram. However, the agreement was not implemented as a majority of the Bru community refused to go back to Mizoram.

The Bru tribe, also known as Reang, is one of the indigenous communities of Northeast India, living mostly in Tripura, Mizoram, and Assam. In Tripura, they are recognized as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group. Following ethnic clashes in Mizoram in 1997, around 37,000 people of the Bru (Reang) tribe fled to Tripura from Mizoram. Since then, 5,000 have returned to Mizoram while 32,000 remain in camps in Tripura.

While the settlement issue in Tripura has run into trouble, the opposition to the Brus in Mizoram persists. On November 24, 2020, the main opposition Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) had written to the Election Commission of India (ECI), urging the poll panel to delete names of about 12,000 Bru voters in the State.

Clearly, the State and Union governments have not sufficiently accommodated the ground realities before announcing the ‘end’ of the Bru displacement issue. The current impasse demonstrates that a resolution remains out of reach.

While those involved in violent protests must be held accountable, further deliberation will be necessary to find the middle ground that satisfies both the Bru people and Tripura locals. Tripura has achieved a remarkable victory against a violent insurgency, and great care is necessary to ensure that no new spaces are ceded to the forces of disorder or to the potential for armed violence.

PAKISTAN

Tribal Elders: Soft Targets
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

On December 2, unidentified assailants shot dead two tribal elders in the Laiti area of Salarzai tehsil (revenue unit), of Bajaur District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

One tribal elder was shot dead in Miranshah town of North Waziristan District in KP on December 1, 2020.

On November 30, four tribal elders were shot dead in Mir Ali Bazaar in the North Waziristan District of KP. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

On November 12, unidentified assailants shot dead a tribal elder in the Khoor Chai village of Mamond tehsil, Bajaur District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), during the first eleven months and six days of the current year (2020), there have been 10 such killings in six separate incidents across Pakistan’s tribal areas. During the corresponding period of 2019, six tribal elders were killed in five incidents.

SATP’s partial data, based on erratic reporting in the Pakistani media, confirms the killing of at least 180 tribal elders since 2005, in 122 incidents. The first such incident in SATP records took place on May 29, 2005, when former Federal Minister and Senator, Malik Faridullah Khan Wazir, was assassinated along with two other tribal elders, reportedly by four Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in the Jandola area of the South Waziristan Agency in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

On May 11, 2017, Brigadier (Retd.) Mehmood Shah, former FATA Security Secretary, had stated that the Taliban began targeting tribal elders in 2005, after the elders voiced their support for the Government, Army and intelligence agencies. He observed,

SAIR noted earlier that a large number of Afghan Taliban took shelter in Pakistan’s tribal areas, primarily FATA, after the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in Afghanistan in 2001.

Not surprisingly, during the peak of Taliban-led militancy in Pakistan, in the eight years between 2008 and 2015, at least 127 tribal elders were killed in the tribal areas, accounting for 70.55 per cent of the total of 180 killings of tribal elders recorded by SATP in almost 16 years.

The terrorist attacks on tribal elders and their families was the result of abject failure of the state mechanism to provide adequate security. This was in spite of the fact these tribal leaders, despite their tribal linkages to different militant groups, supported the Government in its ‘war against terrorism’.

Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the Jinnah International Airport Attack, under pressure to act, the Army launched major counter-insurgency operations – Zarb-e-Azb (Sword of the Prophet) on June 15, 2014, and Radd-ul-Fasaad (Elimination of Discord) on February 22, 2017 – directed against domestically oriented terror groups. These operations forced these terrorist formations to escape from the tribal regions, their traditional sanctuary and take shelter in areas across the border, inside Afghanistan. Consequently, in 2016 and 2017, only two tribal elders were killed in each year, as against 14 such killings during 2015.

The improved situation led to the return of tribal elders, who had fled the area during earlier years of turmoil. However, the terrorists who had escaped into the bordering regions of Afghanistan during the military operations, also started returning ‘home’, after a hiatus of a few years. Once again, the terrorists, started targeting tribal elders in acts of vengeance, as they believed that they were forced to flee the areas due to the support provided by the tribal elders to Government Forces. 

The number of tribal elders killed increased from two in 2017 to six in 2018.

On May 14, 2018, Tribesmen from different parts of North Waziristan staged a protest demonstration at Mir Ali town, North Waziristan, against increasing violence in the area, especially targeted killings of tribal elders. Tribal elder Malik Ghulam Dawar observed that tribesmen were facing severe unrest due to regular targeted killing incidents. He added that they had abandoned their homes and became internally displaced persons (IDPs) to ensure the return of peace, but now, upon repatriation, they were once again facing violence. He added that such incidents confirmed the presence of anti-social elements in the area and the Government needed to fulfil its responsibilities.

Six tribal elders were in 2019, and the number has risen to 10 in the current year (till December 5), the highest since 2015, when 14 such fatalities were recorded. 

On August 4, 2020, a Jirga (tribal council) of two major Pashtun tribes, the Wazir and Dawar, in North Waziristan asked the Government to give their restive homeland necessary resources, if Security Forces failed to establish peace in the region. A declaration from the jirga noted,

Mohsin Dawar, who represents North Waziristan in the Pakistani Parliament, present in the jirga later observed,

The tribal areas have been neglected by successive Governments. On September 28, 2020, Prime Minister Imran Khan admitted Government neglect, stating that tribal areas had not been developed properly for the last 70 years and had been left behind. He conceded that the lack of development in the areas could be exploited by some elements to create instability.

Despite government apathy, the tribal elders and tribes have for long been supporting the Government and Army. Whenever needed, the tribal elders along with their tribal militias, have come forward to provide manpower and logistics support. The government’s failure to provide adequate protection is testing the patience of the tribes, and has the potential to translate into breakaway movements and armed violence.