Guwahati, March 3: The Gauhati High Court has expressed discontentment over the Assam government’s decision to convert the Matia transit camp in Goalpara district, meant to house “foreigners” only, into a “prison”.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Sumitra Saikia, said, “If you want to enhance your prison capacity, do it in the place where the prisons are constructed. Why do you need to convert this detention centre into a prison?”
The bench made the remark while hearing a criminal petition (filed in the year 2020) by an advocate over alleged illegal detention of five persons, declared as “foreigners” by the foreigners’ tribunal.
As the case progressed, the court was also faced with the manner in which detention camps related to foreigners were maintained in the state.
“If you want to do capacity-building exercise, you do for the prisons. You can’t encroach upon an institution, which is meant only for the persons who are not convicts or offenders. They may be in the wrong place at the wrong time, may be because of a number of circumstances, but you can’t keep them with ordinary criminals,” the bench stated.
Reported to be the country’s biggest ‘detention centre’ and later renamed ‘Matia transit camp’, the newly set-up facility became operational with the first batch of 68 inmates shifted there from another transit camp in Goalpara district jail on January 27 this year.
However, following the Assam government’s intensive crackdown on child marriages in the state of late, hundreds of men accused of marrying girls below the eligible age, have been arrested and imprisoned, apparently leading to a space crunch in the existing prisons.
About 350 people have been reportedly imprisoned at the Matia transit camp since February 5 this year.
The state had tried to justify its decision citing under-utilisation of the transit camp which can house 3,000 persons.
Notably, in August 2021, the Assam government had announced that detention centres in the state that house “foreigners” would be called “transit camps”.
Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had recently announced that the police would file cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act against men who have married girls below 14 years of age, and under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act against persons who married girls aged 14 to 18 years.