NRC and story of how Assam got detention centres for foreigners

Assam currently has six detention camps. All have been set up inside jails in the Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Tezpur, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Silchar districts of Assam.

Nityanand Rai, the Union minister of state for home affairs, informed the Rajya Sabha in November 2019 that a total of 1043 foreigners were housed in these detention centres in Assam.

The first of these detention centres came up in 2008-09 in Assam, which was then under the Tarun Gogoi government.

Though detection, detention and deportation of illegal immigrants are old demands in Assam, a little background about the creation of these detention centres may help understand the context.

BEFORE ASSAM BUILT FIRST DETENTION CAMPS

The second half of 2008 was particularly troublesome for Assam in general and the Congress government of Tarun Gogoi in particular.

In July 2008, the Guwahati High Court delivered a hard-hitting judgment in a case related to illegal immigrants. Justice BK Sarmah of the Guwahati High Court ordered the deportation of more than 50 Bangladeshi nationals finding them guilty of acquiring Indian citizenship "fraudulently".

They were also registered as voters in Assam. This was an emotive issue for Assam. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) had come to power in 1980s leading a six-year-long campaign for detection of foreigners, deletion their names from voters' list and their deportation.

In his judgment Justice Sharmah observed, "It is no longer a secret that illegal Bangladeshis have intruded every nook and corner of Assam, including forest land. They have become kingmakers in Assam."

This built immense pressure on the Tarun Gogoi government to act tough against illegal immigrants. The Opposition alleged that the Congress government was going soft on illegal immigrants.

SECTARIAN VIOLENCE AND SERIAL BOMBINGS

In September, sectarian violence broke out in some parts of Assam with Kokrajhar as the centre. The targets were Bengali Muslims who were viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

In October, serial bomb blasts rocked Guwahati killing about 70 people. Several politicians blamed the act of terror on illegal immigrants. Bangladesh-based terror outfit, HuJI (Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami) was suspected to have been behind the bombings. Later, Bodo insurgents were blamed for the same. Bodo insurgents were convicted by a special CBI court this year for the October 2008 blasts but the heat had been turned on against the illegal immigrants.

The October bombings were followed by another in January 2009. The government was under pressure with security analysts and opponents holding illegal immigrants as a security threat in Assam. Pressure was mounting for detection and detention of illegal immigrants.

FIRST DETENTION CAMPS

In July 2009, then Assam Revenue Minister Bhumidhar Barman informed state assembly that two detention camps would be set up to hold illegal immigrants. These were to come up at Mancachar and Mahisashan. He was responding to a discussion initiated by the AGP on the issue of detection of foreigners.

Then Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had said the government was ready to give permanent resident cards to citizens to filter out foreigners. By mid-2010, three detention centres had been set up in Assam. These were in Goalpara, Silchar and Kokrajhar.

A total of 362 declared foreigners/illegal migrants were sent to these detention camps till November 2011, then Union Minister of State M Ramachandran told the Lok Sabha in December 2011. It was an election year and Tarun Gogoi returned to power.

Detention centres at Tezpur, Jorhat and Dibrugarh came up later. These detention centres were meant for housing the illegal immigrants detected by foreigner tribunals until they are deported.

WHITE PAPER ON FOREIGNERS IN ASSAM

In 2012, Tarun Gogoi government - against sustained campaign for detection and detention of illegal immigrants - brought out a white paper on foreigners' issue.

Releasing the white paper, Gogoi announced various tribunals between 1985 and July 2012 had declared 61,774 persons as foreigners and said that this figure included those who crossed the Assam-Bangladesh border. But barely two months later, Gogoi said there was not a single Bangladeshi national in Assam.

While politics over detection and detention of illegal immigrants continued unabated in Assam, the Supreme Court in 2014 directed the government to update the 1951 NRC in the state. It gained pace after the BJP came to power in Assam in 2016. It had been one of the top promises of the BJP in elections.

FRESH PUSH TO DETENTION CENTRES

Having come to power in 2014, the Narendra Modi government wrote to all state governments for setting up detention centres. In 2018, the Modi government approved building a huge detention centre at Matia Goalpara district of Assam. The state government had in 2017 sanctioned 20 bighas of land for the Matia detention centre in 2017.

Earlier this year in July, Nityanand Rai had informed the Lok Sabha that the Modi government's directive to the state governments for building detention centre was not new. He had informed the Lok Sabha that similar directives had been given earlier in 2009 - when detention centres came up in Assam, 2012, 2014 and 2018.

The existing six detention centres -- which had come up before the NRC final draft was published -- in Assam house over 1,000 foreigners. However, the foreign tribunals have declared over 85,000 persons as foreigners over the years.

The Matia detention centre has the capacity to hold around 3,000 people. Reports say that the Matia detention centre, when completed and made operational, will have a hospital, an auditorium, a common kitchen and 180 toilets.

The state government is said to be planning 10 such detention centres in Assam. An approval from the Centre is pending.

This has led to fear among many that once nationwide NRC is brought out, the Muslims left out of the final citizenship list will be housed in such detention camps with the supporters of this view claiming that the recently passed Citizenship Amendment Act will give citizenship to illegal immigrants belonging to other communities.

The detention camps in Assam - existing and proposed - are run by the state home department with the approval from the Union home ministry.

Before we conclude, a question: For how long, a detected foreigner can be kept at detention centre?

A Supreme Court bench headed by then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi earlier this year ruled that foreigners living in the country may be released on bail if she has completed three years at the detention centre. She is required to provide biometric details in a secured database and a security of Rs 1 lakh with two Indian nationals standing as guarantees.