The Gauhati High Court gave 45 days to the Assam government to finish the construction of a detention centre, now renamed transit camp, in Goalpara district. Hearing a writ petition filed by Santanu Borthakur and several other pleas, Justice Kalyan Rai Surana accepted the government’s request to grant six weeks to complete the construction of the detention centre at Matia in Goalpara.
The court was informed that at present there are around 177 detainees in various detention centres in the state and the majority of those have not been able to provide the necessary documents, which are needed for releasing them.
The upcoming Goalpara detention centre, the only dedicated place to put suspected and declared foreigners found in Assam, will have a capacity to house 3,000 inmates, including 400 females. Assam at present has six detention centres, which were created by marking a part of the existing jails at Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Jorhat, Silchar, Dibrugarh and Tezpur.
According to the Assam government, as of April 2021, 2,98,471 cases have been disposed of by the Foreigners Tribunals so far and 1,36,173 cases are pending. Assam planned 10 separate detention centres in view of the number of people who would eventually be left out of the National Register of Citizens. The Matia centre, the first such being constructed on 25 acres at a cost of ₹64 crores, is designed for 3,000 inmates.
The high court has fixed September 9 for the next hearing of the case.
Image: Facebook Goalpora Beauty
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