Refuting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claim that there are no detention centres in India, former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi said the Union government had, last year, sanctioned Rs 46.41 crore for detention camps.
Modi had recently said the Congress and "urban Naxals" have been spreading rumours that Muslims would be sent to detention centres and added that "Neither is anybody sending the country's Muslims to detention centres nor are there any detention centres in India." The prime minister was trying to assuage fears of the Muslim community over Citizenship Amendment Bill and the National Register of Citizens.
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Reacting to Modi's claim, Gogoi said detention camps were first built in the state under High Court's orders in 2009 for detaining declared foreigners. “Detention centres were first built in Assam under High Court's orders in 2009 for detaining declared foreigners. Subsequently, the BJP Government allotted funds of Rs 46.41 crores in 2018 and supported the construction of a big centre in Goalpara for housing around 3000 inmates,” he said in a tweet.
According to media reports, Gogoi had also said in 1998, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister, he had instructed all the governments to set up a detention camp to accommodate foreigners who completed their terms of imprisonment in jail. "He had instructed all the state governments to construct such a detention camp," Gogoi was quoted as saying.
Rahul Gandhi too had attacked Modi over his remarks that there were no detention centres in the country, alleging that "RSS's prime minister lies to Bharat Mata".