Can’t push back Bangladesh refugees, Lalduhoma tells PM Modi

Mizoram chief minister Lalduhoma on Saturday urged the Centre to understand the position of Mizoram in giving shelter to refugees from neighbouring Bangladesh, an official statement said. During a brief meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lalduhoma, who is now in Delhi, informed the former that his government could not push back or deport Zo ethnic people from Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), who took shelter in the northeastern state, the statement said. He informed the Prime Minister that many people belonging to Bawm tribe,  one of the ethnic Mizo tribes, from Bangladesh have been taking shelter in Mizoram since 2022 and many of them are still trying to enter the state.

The two leaders also discussed other issues, including shifting of Assam Rifles’ base from the hearth of Aizawl to Zokhawsang on the eastern outskirts of the state capital and the implementation of Mizoram government’s flagship programme, handholding policy, the statement said. Fleeing armed clashes between the Bangladesh army and Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA), an ethnic insurgent group fighting for a separate state in Bangaldesh, ethnic Bawm people fled their homes in CHT and took shelter in Mizoram since November 2022. An official of state home department said that nearly 2,000 Zo ethnic people from Bangladesh are now taking shelter in Mizoram.

Meanwhile, Zo Re-Unification Organisation (ZORO), a Aizawl based Mizo group representing Chin-Kuki-Mizo-Zomi tribes of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, slammed the Border Security Force (BSF) for pushing back the Bangladesh refugees seeking shelter in Mizoram.  The organisation said that around 93 people belonging to 32 families from Bangladesh’s CHT entered Damped-II village in  southernmost Mizoram’s Lawngtlai district on Friday. After personnel of BSF, which guards the Indo-Bangladesh border, took details of the refugees, they pushed back them to Bangladesh on Friday evening, it alleged. It further alleged that about 200 people who entered Mizoram in mid-June were also pushed back by the BSF. It said that the Bangladeshi refugees are still languishing in the forest as they are afraid of returning to their villages.The ZORO urged the state government to protect the Zo ethnic people from Bangladesh, who seek shelter in Mizoram.