Abul feels the loneliest at night, his head filled with thoughts of home, far from the din of the 50-odd people that he now shares space with. “All my life I never did anything wrong — I farmed and tilled the same plot of land,” says Abul, “but now, suddenly, I am here.”
A farmer from a village in Assam’s Bongaigaon district, Abul is a ‘declared foreigner’ and is now housed in the Matia Transit Camp, India’s first standalone detention centre built exclusively to house ‘illegal foreigners’ and made as per guidelines laid down by the Government of India.
The Matia Transit Camp became operational on January 27, when, after several missed deadlines and following the orders of the Gauhati High Court, the Assam government moved at least 68 people in. Until then, the detainees had been lodged in six detention centres (“transit camps”) which were all situated inside jails across Assam.
With civil society activists highlighting the condition inside the detention centres in prisons as “a gross violation of human rights”, the Matia camp was intended to provide for a more humane detention. However, since February 5, following mass arrests in the state government’s recent anti-child marriage drive, at least 350 people have been imprisoned here, with the government declaring eight blocks of Matia a “temporary jail”.
On February 28, the Gauhati High Court pulled up Assam for converting Matia into a “temporary prison”, describing it as “prima facie unacceptable”. On March 2, the state government said the need to make the camp a temporary prison arose because of the “emergent situation caused by the drive against child marriage”.
According to an official list accessed by The Indian Express, as of February 16, 67 people, including 21 women and at least one child, are currently housed in the camp. These include “convicted foreigners” who allegedly violated visa provisions (Chin and Rohingya people who had fled Myanmar, among others), as well as people declared “foreigners” by Foreigner Tribunals (FT) – those such as Abul who, according to the tribunal, crossed over from Bangladesh into India after 1971.
The Bongaigaon FT’s order passed in 2017 said Abul’s documents were “not sufficient and trustworthy” and he was thus declared “a foreigner/illegal migrant of the post 25-03-1971 stream”.
Story continues below this ad
When the 48-year-old was picked up on February 9, he had not even heard of Matia. Sixteen days later, meeting his 24-year-old daughter and nephew across one of the many grilled windows that flank the entrance to the camp, Abul breaks down, wiping his tears on the gamosa around his shoulders. “Don’t cry… it is only a matter of a few days. We have got a good lawyer in Guwahati, he has a good record… he is doing it for free,” his daughter tries to assure him. Though Abul first received his summons from the tribunal in 2013, the family says they did not follow up because they did not have money to fight the case.
Abul’s daughter says it has been the longest two weeks of her life. Since her father was picked up, the tension in the family has led to her dropping out of college.
Today is the second time in two weeks that the 24-year-old is visiting Abul. She takes a visitors’ slip from the small shop that has sprung up opposite the camp, submits it to the guard at the gate and proceeds inside, awaiting her turn. Most of the visitors at the Matia camp today are relatives of those who have been arrested in the anti-child marriage drive: a weeping wife clutching on to her husband’s hand across the grill, babies gurgling at their fathers.
Abul finally appears at the window. Sharing a hall with 50 people, Abul says he barely sleeps. “There is so much chaos inside the room, so much fighting, because so many people stay here together,” he says, adding, “While we are allowed to roam around in the premises during the day, by 7 pm, we are locked inside our rooms. And that is when I feel the worst.” He says there are two more “bideshi” (foreigner) cases like his from Assam, but the rest are people from Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Story continues below this ad
The Matia Transit Camp, nestled in a scenic spot in Assam’s Goalpara district, was built over five years on a budget of over Rs 46 crore. “The premises has a school, a crèche and medical facilities,” a Home Department official had told The Indian Express. Officials currently posted at Matia said the school has one teacher and the hospital is also functional.
“This is not a jail. It is a transit camp,” said a guard stationed at the entrance. “When people come to visit, we do everything to make them feel like they are not visiting a jail.” He added that the child marriage detainees are kept separate, the food is good and that the bathrooms “even have showers”.
But such assurances mean little to Abul. “That might be true…but I’m still imprisoned,” he says. “What did you eat for breakfast?” his daughter asks, tries to distract a weeping Abul.
Before he can respond, the guard on duty herds him away: “You’ve talked enough for today”.
