Mizoram chief minister and ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) president Zoramthanga on Monday said a quadripartite agreement involving the Centre, the governments of Mizoram and Tripura and a Bru organisation would be signed on Thursday in connection with permanent settlement of Bru refugees in Tripura.

The proposed agreement will end the 23-year-old Bru imbroglio, the chief minister said at the inaugural function of an MNF office here.

Zoramthanga said he was invited by the Union home ministry to visit Delhi and sign the agreement, which will final settlement of the matter of over 35,000 Bru refugees.

“The agreement will be signed between officials of the Union home ministry, chief ministers of Mizoram and Tripura and leaders of Mizoram Bru Displaced People’s Forum, in the presence of home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Thursday,” he said.

He said the Centre’s decision follows Bru refugees’ refusal to return and desire to permanently settle in Tripura.

“The home ministry wants to settle the issue by allowing the refugees to permanently live in Tripura,” he said.

Forum general secretary Bruno Msha said it had not received any information on the proposed agreement.

Thousands of Brus migrated to Tripura in 1997, fleeing communal tension. Since then, they have been living at six relief camps in Tripura, where the Centre provides them ration.

The Mizoram government has made at least nine attempts to repatriate them since 2009 but the Bru refugees have refused to return to their villages citing security reasons and inadequate rehabilitation.

However, more than 8,000 Bru people returned to Mizoram, either through repatriation or on their own, between November 2009 and November last year, home department officials said. In October and November last year, the Mizoram government conducted the ninth and final phase of Bru repatriation during which around 1,165 people, belonging to 289 families, out of over 4,400 identified families, returned.

The NGO Coordination Committee has been demanding that the names of those Brus, who are reluctant to return, should be deleted from the voter list in Mizoram and permanently settled in Tripura. The Nagarik Suraksha Samity, a Tripura-based platform of non-tribals, continued its indefinite sit-in on Monday, demanding repatriation of the Bru people to Mizoram.