The Centre informed the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that the Assam government has not constructed any detention camp in the State to exclusively detain those who do not have documents proving their citizenship under the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Assam published the final NRC on August 31 last year where more than 19 lakh of the 3.29 crore applicants were excluded. As per Rules, those excluded can challenge the exclusion with the Foreigners Tribunals, a process that has not begun yet.
Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said a total of 1,381 people were currently in detention centres, also called holding centres, in Assam.
As per the information furnished by the government of Assam, the number of cases referred to the Foreigners Tribunals in the last three years are 9,457 cases (2017), 2,051 cases (2018) and 599 cases (2019, up to November), Mr. Rai said in reply to a written question.
The Minister quoted Assam government data on the number of detenues in holding centres in the last three years, after they were declared as foreigners by the Foreigners Tribunal: Goalpara has 209 persons; Kokrajhar – 105; Silchar – 79; Tezpur – 661; Jorhat – 286 and Dibrugarh – 41. A total of 761 detenues were released from the holding centres in the last three years, he said.
