India builds first detention center in Assam for ‘stateless citizens’

The northeastern Indian state of Assam is building a detention center to house thousands of stateless citizens. On Aug. 31 the state released its final list of the National Register of Citizenship (NRC), an exercise in establishing the genuine citizens of Assam. Out of 32 million people, about 2 million were not on the list. Those who have been left off have four months to apply to foreign tribunals and higher courts.

The detention center is being built at a cost of more than $6 million at Dudhnoi village in the Goalpara district of Assam to house stateless citizens who could not find a place on the NRC. “This detention center will keep 3,000 people and this is the first of its kind in Assam,” said Rabin Das, the engineer who is overseeing the construction of the center.

This is the first time any state government in India has built an exclusive detention center to hold illegal immigrants.

Sipali Hajjang, a local from the Hajjang tribe of Assam, has a job as a construction worker at the site of the new detention center at Dudhnoi. Her name is not on the NRC list and if her appeal is rejected at the foreign tribunal she may be arrested and put in the same detention center that she is helping to build.

Imrana Begum, from the Darrang district in Assam, is the only one from her ten-member family whose name is missing from the NRC list. A daughter of a local legislator, Begum is upset that her name is not on the list. “Is the government more keen to put people in the detention center than give justice to the people whose names have been erroneously removed from the NRC list,” Begum told Arab News.