Assam Government To Work Out Guidelines For Releasing Foreigners

GUWAHATI: The Assam Government in consultation with the Central Government will prepare a notification on guidelines on releasing of declared foreigners who have completed three years’ stay at different detention camps in the State. The guidelines will be worked out as per the May 10 directives of the Supreme Court.

The notification will have the details as how to apply, conditions of release and other criteria for the declared foreigners to legally get out of the detention camps. The border branch of Assam Police is now busy in finding the exact number of detainees who have spent more than three years in the six detention camps across the State. According to sources, there is likelihood of over 100 ‘Declared Foreigners’ and ‘Convicted Foreigners’ in the detention camps. There are 938 detainees at six detention camps till January 31, 2019. The detention camps are situated at the districts jails of Goalpara and Kokrajhar and the central jails in Silchar, Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Tezpur.

Earlier, Assam Government had filed an affidavit with the Supreme Court stating its position that foreigners living for more than five years in the State detention camps can be released against certain set conditions. At that time, the number of such detainees was 35. However, the apex court refused to accept that stand and on May 10 said that the detenues who were declared foreigners by Tribunals and kept in detention camps in Assam for more than three years may be released. The bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, however, said that their release would be on following conditions.

Giving its order the bench set its conditions. These include execution of bond with two sureties of Rs 1,00,000 each of Indian citizens; a specific verifiable address of stay after release; biometric of his or her iris (if possible) and all ten fingerprints and photos shall be captured and stored in a secured database before release from the detention centres.

The court further stated that he or she shall report once every week to the police station specified by the Foreigners Tribunal; he or she shall notify any change of his or her address to the specified Police Station on the same day; and a quarterly report has to be submitted by the Superintendent of Police (Border) to the Foreigners Tribunal regarding appearance of such released declared foreigner to the Police Station concerned and in case of violation of condition, the detained foreigner detained foreign national (DFN) will be apprehended and produced before the Foreigners Tribunal.

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