9/14/2019

INDIA'S ILLEGALS ? DETENTION INTENTS


''ASSAM is on the brink of a crisis, which would not only lead to a loss of nationality and liberty of a large group of people but also erosion of their basic-rights - severely affecting the lives of generations to come,'' Amnesty said in a statement.

GOALPARA : Across a river in remote part of India's northeast, labourers have cleared dense forest in an area equivalent to about seven soccer fields and are building the first mass detention centre for illegal immigrants.

The camp in the lush, tea growing state of Assam is intended for at least 3,000 detainees.

It will also have a school, a hospital, recreation area and quarters for security forces - as well as high boundary wall and watchtowers, according to a Reuters interview with workers and contractors at the site and a review of copies of its layout plans.

Some of the workers building the camp said they were not on citizenship list Assam released last week as part of drive to detect illegal immigrants. That means the workers could themselves end up in detention.

Shefali Hajong, a gaunt tribal woman from a nearby village, said she was not on the list and will join nearly two million people who need to prove they are Indian citizens by producing documents such as birth and land ownership certificates dating back decades.

If they fail to do so, they risk being taken to detention camps like the one being built.

The government says there are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in Assam from neighbouring Muslim majority Bangladesh, but Dhaka has refused to accept anyone declared an illegal immigrant in India.

Shefali, who belongs to the indigenous Hajong tribe, said she was tense because of the situation. ''But I need to fill my stomach,'' she said in the local Assamese dialect as she used to hoe to feed stones into a concrete mixer.

She and other workers make about $4 a day, which is considered a decent wage in the impoverished area. She said she didn't know her exact age and believed it was about 26, adding that she didn't why she wasn't on the citizenship list.

''We don't have birth certificates,'' said her mother, Malati Hajong, also working at the site.

The camp, near the town of Goalpara, is the first first of at least ten detention centers Assam has planned, according to local media reports.

The mammoth  Supreme-court ordered exercise to document Assam's citizens has been strongly backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government that came to power in New Delhi five years ago.

Critics say the campaign is aimed at Muslims, even those who have legally in India for decades. Many Hindus, mostly poor and ill-educated are also not on the citizenship list released last week.

The serving of this publishing. continues. The World Students Society thanks, Reuters. And will be   watching these ongoing  developments very carefully.

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