GUWAHATI, April 29 - The Home Department has given its nod to setting up of the first ever full-fledged foreigners� detention centre in the State for those facing deportation to their respective countries.
This will arguably be the biggest foreigners� detention centre in the entire country and the estimate for funds is expected to be placed before the Union Government very soon.
Although the State has at present six detention camps, each one of them, however, is functioning on a makeshift basis and that too inside jail premises. The need for finding separate camps for the declared foreigners was felt as most of the jails are overcrowded.
The Home Department has asked the office of the Additional Director General of Police�(Border) to prepare a detailed project report in this connection. The State Government has already allotted 20 bighas of land in Dakurbhita area in Goalpara district for the first ever detention camp of the declared foreigners.
�With an increase in the number of Foreigners� Tribunals from 36 to 100 in the State, more and more illegal migrants are expected to be detected, necessitating better arrangements,� official sources told this reporter.
There are also issues related to human rights violations, especially related to the condition where the detenues, including children and women, are made to stay, that the State machinery does not want to take chance with. The total number of children lodged in the detention centres as on March 2016 is 19.
As per records available, there at present 489 (approx) detenues, which also include 28 convicted Afghanistan nationals (other are Bangladeshis) lodged in the six detention centre attached with the respective jails. This includes those declared foreigners by tribunals along with those convicted under various Sections of the law, including the Foreigners Act.
The detention camps are located within the jail premises of Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Silchar, Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Tezpur.
Sources said that with the slow pace of deportation already plaguing the entire process, unavailability of a permanent centre is just adding to the woes.
