Since 2009, States asked by MHA to set up detention centres

The Ministry of Home Affairs has been instructing the State governments since 2009 to set up detention centres to “restrict the movements of foreign nationals staying illegally so that they are physically available at all times for expeditious repatriation,” according to the government response in the Lok Sabha. Addressing a rally in Delhi on December 22, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “these rumours of detention centres being spread by the Congress and Urban Naxals are completely false.the Muslims of the country are neither being sent to detention centres nor is there a detention centre in India, this is a white lie.” Harsh Mander’s petition The 11-page manual was prepared in the aftermath of a petition filed by activist Harsh Mander on September 20, 2018 in the Supreme Court, highlighting the plight of families languishing in six detention centres in Assam where members of the families who were declared foreigners were put in camps separated from each other. The manual comprising 39 points says that the States require “no specific approval” from the MHA to set up “detention centres /holding centres/ camps.” It lays down that these centres should be set up outside the jail premises and their numbers and size should be decided by the States keeping in view the actual number of foreigners to be housed as well as the progress in deportation proceedings. The MHA later issued a clarification on June 11 that “Since the FTs have been established only in Assam, and in no other State of the country, this amendment is going to be relevant only to Assam at present.” Delhi also has three detention centres to lodge illegal immigrants or foreigners who have completed their jail sentence but their deportation process has not been initiated or completed.