Parliament Watch: Over 60,000 people declared foreigners in Assam without being heard between 1985 to 2019: minister informs Lok Sabha

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]HE Minister of State (Home) G Kishan Reddy today informed the Lok Sabha that a total of 63,959 people in Assam had been declared foreigners by the Foreigners Tribunal, through ex-parte proceedings from 1985 to Feb 28, 2019.

The minister was responding to a question by Member of Parliament from the Indian National Congress, Shashi Tharoor. Tharoor had asked the following questions from the Central Government:

(a) the total number of detention centres set up to hold "doubtful voters" and "foreigners" in the State of Assam;

(b) the total number of people detained in these detention centres;

(c) the number of persons who have been kept in these detention centres for more than a year;

(d) the number of persons who have been kept in these detention centres for more than three years;

(e) the number of people who have been kept in these detention centres with access to free legal aid from the Government; and

(f) the number of people who have been declared foreigners through ex-parte proceedings by the Foreigners' Tribunals in Assam?

The Minister also informed the Lok Sabha that only 1133 people who were "declared foreigners" had been detained in the six detention centres in the State of Assam. Out of this,  769 people had been kept for more than a year, and 335 people have kept for more than three years.

Read the full reply here:

[pdfviewer]https://cdn.theleaflet.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/02172649/Assam-Detention-Centres.pdf[/pdfviewer]