Mobs set homes on fire, thousands displaced in north-eastern India

Tripura tribal woman''s effort to revive traditional weaving artNew Delhi - Mobs, angered by the gunning down of a youth, set fire to over 200 huts in India's eastern state of Mizoram, displacing several thousand people, news reports said Sunday.

"The mobs have set ablaze more than 225 houses of Reang tribals in seven villages under Mamit and Kolashib districts since Saturday, displacing over 5,000 people," IANS news agency quoted a Mizoram Home Department official as saying.

The displaced tribals have taken shelter in adjacent states of Assam and Tripura, it reported.

"The ethnic violence erupted after militants shot dead an 18-year-old Mizo youth at Bungthuam village, near the Tripura border, on Friday," the official said.

A little-known militant outfit calling itself Bru National Army claimed responsibility for the killing.

Bru is the name Reang tribal refugees are known by in neighbouring Tripura, where more than 35,000 of them live in camps since fleeing Mizoram after clashes with ethnic majority Mizos in
1997.

Authorities in southern Assam and northern Tripura held meetings with local leaders and Reang tribals in attempts to maintain peace in mixed-population areas.

A tripartite meeting on November 4 in Mizoram capital Aizawl between representatives of the federal and state governments and tribal refugees failed to resolve the 12-year deadlock to repatriate the Reang refugees from Tripura to Mizoram.