Congress crticises PM Modi’s ‘no detention centre in India’ claim
দেশে ডিটেনশন সেন্টার নেই, মোদির মন্তব্যের সমালোচনা কংগ্রেসের

December 23: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday denied that there were any detention centres in India. Addressing a massive rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan on Sunday ahead of the Delhi Assembly polls to be held next year, PM Modi said The Congress and its allies – some urban Naxals — are spreading rumors that all Muslims will be sent to detention centers… Neither is anybody sending the country’s Muslims to detention centres nor are there any detention centres in India… The Muslims of India don’t need to worry at all. The CAB and the NRC will not apply to the Muslims of the country.”

In his 97-minute speech, he said that the nationwide roll-out of citizens’ list — a matter referred to repeatedly by his home minister Amit Shah — may not be happening. He said, “I want to tell the 130 crore citizens of India that since my government has come to power, since 2014, there has been no discussion on NRC anywhere. Only after the Supreme Court’s order, this exercise was done for Assam.”

In response to PM Modi’s declaration that “there are no detention centres in India”, Congress said that it wouldn’t take more than a simple internet search to prove that the claim as false. “Does PM Modi believe Indians can’t do a simple Google search to fact check his lies? Detention Centres are extremely real and will continue to grow as long as this government is in power,” the Congress party posted on its official Twitter handle. The Congress in the post attached three reports, one that quoted Minister of State in the Home Ministry Nityanand Rai as saying that 28 had died in detention centres in Assam.

At present, Assam has six detention centres that are housed inside the district jails. On 27 November 2019, the Government disclosed that 988 people were housed in six detention centres in Assam. The existing centres are currently being run from the district jail premises at Dibrugarh, Silchar, Tezpur, Jorhat, Kokrajhar and Goalpara. Moreover, Goalpara district in Assam will be home to the country’s biggest detention centre and is being constructed on 28,800 sq ft of land that will accommodate foreign convicts, people declared ‘foreigners’ and will be operational by early 2020. The centre will build it at a cost of Rs 45 crore in Goalpara, with a capacity to hold 3,000 detainees.

The National Register of Citizens (NRC) – meant to weed out illegal migrants from the country – was rolled out in Assam earlier this year and left out lakhs from it. Out of a total number of 3,30,27,661 applicants, the names of 3,11,21,004 were included in the final NRC. That means a total of 19,06,657 persons were excluded from the NRC. Many of them are now in detention centres across Assam.