GUWAHATI, Nov 16 - If the Supreme Court�s order to release illegal Bangladeshi foreigners, who have spent over three years in detention camps, is followed in letter and spirit, almost all existing inmates currently lodged at the six detention camps in the State would have to be set free in two years time, even as the government has cleared the decks for releasing another batch of such inmates.
A batch of 20 illegal Bangladeshi migrants, who are lodged in detention camps for over three years, would be set free in a couple of weeks� time. This is the second batch of inmates who would be freed after the apex court�s order. Earlier, around 56 illegal Bangladeshi migrants were released.
Meanwhile, referring to an internal assessment, sources privy to the developments said that records pertaining to the 1,000-odd inmates currently lodged in the six detention camps, reflect that almost all of them would make themselves eligible to be freed under the apex court�s new direction.
�By another two year�s time, almost all of them would cross the stipulated three-year period in the camp. Since the entire exercise of detention of suspected foreigners has also slowed down ever since the NRC process gained momentum, the number of inmates will fast decrease,� a senior official requesting anonymity told The Assam Tribune, said.
At present, there are over 1,050 inmates in the six detention camps, at Tezpur, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Silchar, Goalapara and Kokrajhar, of which nearly 1,030 are suspected Bangladeshi nationals. The rest are Myanamarese nationals.
Sources said that as the government is yet to take a call on the people excluded from the NRC, the existing detention camps might soon become redundant.
�The entire process of the office of the NRC Coordinator sending the notice to those excluded from the registry followed by the process of appeal in the Foreigners� Tribunal and subsequently in the higher courts is bound to take time. It is therefore felt by some quarters that the provisions of creating full-fledged detention camps in Goalpara and other places would never yield the desired results,� sources pointed out.
�After the batch of 20 inmates who would come out in the open sky, another batch of over 30 inmates would be freed subsequently,� sources added.
