NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha was on Tuesday informed there have been six deaths in the last one year in Assam’s detention centres, where declared or convicted foreigners are kept. Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy said as many as 3,331 people have been lodged at the six detention centres in Assam, while another such facility at Matia, Goalpara with a capacity to put 3,000 people is under construction in the state.
The six detention centres are at Tezpur (797 people), Silchar (479), Dibrugarh (680), Jorhat (670), Kokrajhar (335) and Goalpara (370) people. The minister also said there is no National Register of Citizens (NRC) detention camp in Assam.
The minister was replying to questions by Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP Nusrat Jahan Ruhi. Nusrat asked the Home Ministry about the number of people who died in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) detention camps in the North-Eastern states especially in Assam during the last one year.
“There is no NRC detention camp/center in the state of Assam. 10 inmates of the six detention centers in Assam, where declared foreigners/convicted foreigners are kept, died in different hospitals from March 1, 2019 to February 29, 2020,” Reddy said. During the last one year, from March 1, 2019 to February 29, 2020, three teams of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) have visited the detention centers in Assam and interacted with the declared foreign nationals, the minister added.
Thick numbers at detention centres
The six detention centres are at Tezpur (797 people), Silchar (479), Dibrugarh (680), Jorhat (670), Kokrajhar (335) and Goalpara (370) people.