GUWAHATI, July 18 - Even as the issue of large-scale presence of illegal Bangladeshi migrants in Assam continues to dominate the State�s politics, the six detention camps in six districts have in total a meagre 527 legally-detected illegal migrants as on June 30, 2016.
A total of 902 declared foreigners and 27,252 convicted foreigners have been �sent back� to Bangladesh. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary stated this in the Assembly today while replying to a question by Congress MLA Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha.
In another written reply to AGP legislator Ramendra Narayan Kalita, however, the number of deported illegal Bangladeshis (during the period from April 2001 to 2016) has been stated as 265, while the number of detected illegal Bangladeshis is 27,002.
The detention camps are in the districts of Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Silchar, Dibrugarh, Tezpur and Jorhat. Stating this in the Assembly replying to a question by Purkayastha, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister said that there were no Indian citizens in any detection camp and that the camps had the required basic facilities. In the last five years, two detention camp inmates have died � one at the GMCH and the other on the day he was shifted to camp.
Raising the question, Purkayastha also alleged that the detention camps had Indian citizens as well, including freedom fighters who had received tamrapatra. �The Prime Minister recently said that the detention camps would be demolished and the Hindu migrants would be given Indian citizenship. Apparently, there is contradiction in what the government is saying and what it is actually doing. There has been gross violation of human rights in the camps. We want the government to clarify its stand on the issue,� he said.
