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When basic rights are unavailable in detention camps, other prisoners enjoy VIP treatment
January 21: Assam has six detention centres to house those declared non-nationals by Foreigners’ Tribunal or people who have been marked doubtful ‘D’ voters by the Election Commission. In 2012, three detention centres – at jails in Goalpara, Kokrajhar and Silchar – were set up under approval of the then UPA government. Three other centres were subsequently set up at district jails in Tezpur, Dibrugarh and Jorhat.
Weeks before the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was published, the Centre had approved another detention camp, a standalone one, in Goalpara district with a capacity of 3,000. The existing detention centres in the state – with a combined capacity of about 1,000 – are always overcrowded, with reports of inhuman living conditions for the detainees, which include children. Families also often get separated as all detention centres do not house male and female detainees. These detention centres are nothing but regular prisons where criminals from all backgrounds are housed.
When such is the state of affairs prevalent in the detention camps, many criminals housed in the jails are getting VVIP treatment by virtue of their money power and political influence. VK Sasikala, the live-in aide of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, has been enjoying VIP facilities in jail, a query under the Right to Information Act has found. The 59-year-old, who is serving a four-year jail term after being convicted in disproportionate assets case, had managed to get many of the privileges she was not entitled to – including five rooms, a private cook and kitchen space, and an endless stream of visitors.
RTI activist Narasimha Murthy, who had filed the query, says all this was achieved through hefty bribes. Ignoring the rules and systems in place, people came to visit her in groups, went to her room directly and stay for 3-4 hours. A senior police officer, D Roopa, alleged that Sasikala was enjoying VIP facilities – separate kitchen, extra rooms and extended visiting – after giving a huge bribe to the officials, rumoured to be around Rs. 2 crore. Retired IAS Officer Vinay Kumar, who investigated the allegations since, confirmed that rules were indeed broken. Sasikala and her aides received many facilities, said the report of the panel he headed.
In such a condition, it is but quite natural to wonder that when basic rights are denied to the detainees in the Detention Camps, the criminals lodged in the prisons are accorded a VVIP treatment !
