11 girls missing from Reang migrant camps rescued in Agartala

 

AGARTALA: Tripura Police arrested a man from Chandrapur Inter State Bust terminal in Agartala where he had brought 11 girls, including 9 minors, to be hired as house helps. Notably, all the rescued girls belong to the bru/reang community and were picked up from a refugee camp in Kanchanpur.

 

 

The reang refugees have been residing in relief camps in North Tripura since 1997 after ethnic clashes drove them out of Mizoram.

 

 

Sangeeta Barui, a childline worker said that they had received a complaint of a man along with 11 children at the ISBT. The locals there handed him over to the police and police took him to the Child Welfare office of East Agartala.

 

 

Barui added that the officials have conducted medical examination of the girls and will forward them to shelter. "We have also received tip off on other minors working in houses in Agartala from which, we will rescue those children soon," she was quoted as saying.

 

 

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Most of the 5,400 Bru families, displaced from the neighbouring state following an exodus in 1997, reside in Kanchanpur.

 

 

The accused told police that the parents sent their children to work in Agartala of their own volition and they came with the "blessings from their parents."

 

 

He further added that they are to be taken to work in the affluent families.

 

 

The process to rehabilitate the Brus has hit a roadblock due to the COVID-19 crisis. A Quadripartite Accord was signed in January last year between the Centre, Tripura, Mizoram and the Bru refugee leaders agreeing to settle them in six different parts of Tripura and a package of ₹ 600 crore was allotted by the centre.