GUWAHATI: The Meghalaya government will use a hostel of the Meghalaya Board of School Education (MBoSE) in Shillong as a temporary detention/holding centre for foreign nationals awaiting deportation after completing prison terms.
The government will take this measure in deference to an order of the High Court of Meghalaya issued on Monday. The court directed the transfer of such foreign nationals to the MBoSE hostel by September 28.
Currently, Meghalaya does not have a detention/holding centre. According to reports, the state has around 30 foreign nationals who have completed their sentences.
On September 17, the state government had issued a notification designating the MBoSE hostel as the temporary centre. It has six dormitories and around 60 beds.
According to plans, the centre will have administrative staff, security personnel, watch towers, medical personnel, CCTV cameras, and fire safety arrangements.
The state’s Inspector General of Prisons had directed all prison Superintendents to transfer the foreign nationals to the hostel following their approval by the court.
During a visit by a court delegation to the District Jail in Shillong on September 8, it came to light that 17 foreign nationals were still lodged there despite having completed their sentences.
Fifteen of these jail inmates are from Bangladesh and one each from Myanmar and Nigeria.
The Myanmar national has been in jail for over 10 years despite completing his sentence. Similarly, a Bangladeshi national has spent more than four years in prison beyond his sentence. The others have remained incarcerated for periods ranging from six months to a couple of years beyond their sentences.
Later, the Inspector General of Prisons had submitted before the court that the state did not have any detention centres for persons who completed their sentence and that, until such time, they were either deported or appropriate steps were taken for their repatriation.
The court observed that the Supreme Court in several judgments had noted that the detention of an accused even after completing the period of imprisonment was illegal and violated Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
“In fact, all these foreign nationals ought to have been moved to detention centres having completed their sentence as is required by law,” the court had stated.
