New Delhi: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday denied in parliament that any detention camp is being built by the Assam government to specifically detain those who didn’t have documents to prove their citizenship under the recently updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state.
Over 19 lakh people were left out of the final NRC, published in August 2019. These people will have to approach the tribunals set up under the Foreigners’ (Tribunals) Order 1964 to prove their citizenship.
On February 4, replying to a question by Pradyut Bordoloi, Congress MP from the state’s Nagaon constituency, Nityanand Rai, minister of state for home affairs, said in a written statement placed in the Lok Sabha, “As per information received from the Government of Assam, the state government has not constructed any detention camp in Assam exclusively to detain those who do not have documents proving their citizenship under NRC.”
Though Bordoloi sought from the MHA details on the location and the capacity of such detention centres/camps and the district-wise break up of the expenditure involved in setting up such facilities, the minister’s statement doesn’t include the Union ministry’s sanction of funds to construct one in the state’s Goalpara district. News reports said the MHA has sanctioned a sum of Rs 47 crore to build such a facility in Goalpara’s Matia area. Photos of the facility under construction, being carried out by Assam Police Housing Corporation Limited, have done the rounds on both social and traditional media.
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Some news reports, quoting police officials, said the detention centre will “not be like a regular jail”. An NDTV report said, “It will also have a hospital, an auditorium, a common kitchen and 180 toilets and washrooms. There will also be a primary school just outside the detention centre.”
“A red-painted boundary wall encircles the upcoming camp, with the outer wall at 20 feet and the inner wall at six feet. The detention centre will also have watchtowers.”
Assam presently has six detention camps placed inside district jails in Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Tezpur and Silchar. The first one was set up inside the Goalpara jail in 2009 as per an MHA order. Those held at the centres include people marked doubtful voters by the Election Commission and the state border police besides those declared foreigners by tribunals.
There have also been reports of a detention centre – like the one in Assam’s Matia – being readied in Karnataka, and the MHA has since 2009 asked all states to built such facilities to restrict the movement of undocumented foreigners. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this past December, “There is no detention centre in India”.