PM SPREADS LIES ON DETENTION CENTRES

New Delhi, December 25th, 2019Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced in a public meeting at Ram Lila Maidan  on 22nd Dec 2019, that there were no detention centres in the country and no such decision has been taken to set up detention centres. He said that it was the false propaganda of the opposition parties to mislead the people of India. This statement is a blatant lie that doesn’t befit the prime minister of a country like India.

According to reliable reports there are already three detention centres in Assam inside the district jails in Goalpara, Kokrajhar and Silchar set up in 2012. Later, three more centres were set up at district jails in Tezpur, Dibrugarh and Jorhat. The combined capacity of these six temporary centres is 1000, but the centres are overcrowded. A new exclusive detention centre is under construction in Goalpara in Assam since Dec 2018. 20 bigha land and 47 crore rupees were sanctioned by the Government to construct this detention centre which would accommodate three thousand inmates. About 70% work is finished and this detention centre was scheduled to be complete by 31st of Dec 2019. It’s handover to the government is now rescheduled to be by 31st March 2020. Detention centres are being built in Karnataka and Maharashtra too.

According to Times of India, Karnataka has already opened its first detention centre near Nelamangala, 40 kms away from Bangalore.

The Home Minister for State G. Kishan Reddy had stated in the parliament that states have been instructed to make detention centres in every state.

The miserable conditions of the existing detention centres had already been brought to the attention of Supreme Court of India through a Special Leave Petition filed by Mr Harsh Mandar who in hopeless situation had resigned from a committee of NHRC. There is a news that an atmosphere of depression has taken over the thousands of inmates of these detention centres and according to the government 28 persons have died during their detention and most of the deaths  occurred during the BJP rule. Facts being so, it is highly deplorable and unfortunate that Prime Minister of India is lying so blatantly in public.

SDPI demands that Narendra Modi must forthwith tender an apology to the country for making such false statement, and order to stop construction of detention centres.