NRC Crisis in Assam Explained: Supreme Court Orders Deportation of 63 Foreigners from Matia Camp

On February 4, the Supreme Court directed the Assam government to start the deportation process of 63 foreigners currently lodged in the Matia transit camp in western Assam’s Goalpara district. This is the country’s largest detention camp and currently has 270 inmates.

Before the Matia camp became operational in 2023, persons declared as foreigners in Assam were lodged in six makeshift detention centres located in jails at Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Silchar, Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Tezpur. The Matia camp, which has the capacity to accommodate 3,000 inmates (each of its 15 buildings can house 200 people), was renamed in August 2021, along with all detention centres, as a “transit camp for detention purpose”. In January 2023, the first batch of 64 “declared foreigners” were shifted from the detention centre in Goalpara district jail to the Matia camp. The shifting of “declared foreigners” from the other five detention centres was completed on March 12, 2023, when the last batch of 87 inmates from the Silchar detention centre were transferred.

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Of the 270 inmates at Matia, 133 have been declared “foreigners” by Assam’s Foreigners Tribunals. The State government has reportedly initiated the process of deporting 70 of them in coordination with the Ministry of External Affairs. These 70 inmates have apparently admitted that they are Bangladeshi nationals and have divulged their addresses in that country. The other 63 have not shared their addresses in their parent country; these are the people referred to in the Supreme Court direction.

A Supreme Court bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan reprimanded the State government saying it could not detain people “till eternity” and that such indefinite detention constituted violation of human rights and international obligations. The State government, on the other hand, has been hesitating to start the process for 63 detainees because their addresses are not known and this puts a question mark over the parent country’s willingness to receive them.

The Supreme Court has in recent months expressed concern over living conditions in detention camps. According to information provided on March 28, 2022, by the Assam Government in the Assembly, as many as 31 inmates died in detention centres “due to illness” from March 17, 2016, to January 11, 2022. On October 4, 2024, last year, the Supreme Court directed the Assam State Legal Services Authority to (ASLSA) make surprise visits to the Matia transit camp to verify claims made by the State government about conditions in the camp in an affidavit, which was filed on October 3 pursuant to a court order passed on September 29.

On November 4, the court said that the Legal Services Authority’s report showed the conditions were not satisfactory. It asked the State government to make sure that the conditions improved within a month.

Modi’s promise as prime ministerial candidate in 2014

As the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2014, Narendra Modi promised in an election rally in Silchar that all detention camps in Assam would be closed if his party came to power at the Centre. The lodging of “D” (doubtful/disputed) voters and persons declared “foreigners” by the Foreigners Tribunals in detention camps was a violation of human rights, he claimed then. He alleged that whenever the Congress government became apprehensive of losing support, it assigned the “D” tag to certain voters. (The Election Commission, during intensive revision of electoral rolls in the State in 1997, ordered that the letter “D” be written against names of all those voters who failed to provide proof of their citizenship and that their cases be referred to the Foreigners Tribunals. Ever since, “D” voters in Assam are not allowed to vote.)

In sharp contradiction with Modi’s poll promise, the first BJP-led coalition government in Assam headed by Sarbananda Sonowal informed the Assam Assembly on July 29, 2019, that it had proposed to set up additional 10 detention camps at Guwahati, Sivasagar, Nagaon, Karimganj, Nalbari, Haflong, Barpeta, Goalpara, Lakhimpur and Tezpur, but the Central government was yet to approve the proposal. The detention camp at Matia, for which the Modi government had provided Rs.46 crore, was under construction then.

In 2009, Tarun Gogoi’s Congress-led coalition government notified makeshift detention centres located in jails. The official notification, “No. PLB.149/2008/88 dated 17/06/2009”, stated that the State government decided to set up these centres in order to detain “foreigners” as soon as they were declared as such by Foreigners Tribunals until they were deported back to their countries.

On January 3, 2013, a Gauhati High Court order directed the government to deport people within two months of their detection as foreigners, “within the meaning of 1946 Act”. (This meant that the onus was on people labelled as “D” voters to prove they were not foreigners, as per the Foreigners Act, 1946; the same applied to children and others not included in the electoral rolls whose citizenship was suspected by police) The court said: “The persons detected to be foreigners shall be taken into custody immediately and kept in detention camp(s) till they are deported from India within the aforesaid timeframe.”

In a compassionate direction during the COVID pandemic, on April 13, 2020, the Supreme Court had said that those lodged in detention centres for two years should be released on bail. On August 28, 2024, 522 inmates who had completed two years in detention, and 273 inmates who had completed three years, were released on bail from the Matia camp. Those released are required to report once every week to the police station specified by the Foreigners Tribunals.

Matia transit camp under scrutiny

During a surprise visit on October 9, 2024, a team of four officials nominated by ASLSA found that there were 279 people at the Matia camp: 181 men, 58 women and 40 children (18 boys, 22 girls). Sixty of them were from Bangladesh and 75 were Declared Foreign Nationals (declared as such by tribunals); there were also 105 Rohingyas, 32 Myanmarese (Chin), and one from Senegal. The team found that the inmates’ breakfast at 7 a.m. consisted of tea, chapati, sugar and jaggery; lunch at 10:30 a.m. comprised rice, dal and mixed vegetables; dinner served at 4 p.m. was rice, dal and mixed vegetable. Non-vegetarian food was provided once a week.

“The team has inspected the kitchen and found the condition of the kitchen as well as its cleanliness to be average,” said the ASLSA report submitted to the (Registrar Judicial), Supreme Court on October 29, 2024. The team found a male doctor, a pharmacist and female nurse at the camp’s medical facility. It reported that a male ward, where three psychiatric patients were lodged, was not clean.

“On query, the medical authority stated that the psychiatric patients often make the room dirty after cleaning the room,” it added. The team found each floor of the residential buildings had attached western toilets and bathrooms with running water; cleanliness of the washrooms was “average”.

During a second surprise visit on October 21, the team recorded 275 inmates. (The number keeps fluctuating with new “declared foreigners” arriving in the camp and those completing two/three years in detention being released on bail.) The kitchen and the medical facility were cleaner. The inmates did not have any complaints about the quality and quantity of food provided, but they complained that they got the same mixed vegetable curry for both lunch and dinner and wanted change. Patients kept at the medical facility complained that though they got medicines for minor ailments, medicines for serious diseases were not provided instantly. The team also found that the detainees were provided with mattresses, bedsheets, blankets, pillows, mosquito nets; one female ward did not have enough mattresses.

The Deputy Superintendent of the camp, Mintu Rajbangshi, told the team that Indira Gandhi National Open University would start a learning centre inside the camp shortly. In its October 3 affidavit, the State government had claimed that inmates would be provided with distance education platforms.

Earlier, during an inspection of the Matia camp on August 6, 2024, an ASLSA team received complaints from female inmates about inadequate supply of baby food. “There exists a space inside the Detention Centre/Transit Camp which has been used as a school for providing education to the children and a female teacher is found engaged in imparting basic education to children. The District Legal Services Authority has provided the necessary articles in order to impart education in the said school such as white board, school bags, water bottles, pen, pencils, desk benches etc.,” states the report submitted by the ASLSA to the Suprme Court on August 14, 2024. The team also found that though there were three medical wards, there was no separate section for female patients.

Regarding the State government’s claim in its affidavit of “engaging a lady medical officer for female detainees with stress upon taking care of mental health aspect”, the ASLSA report on the October 24 inspection states: “The team has inspected medical facilities maintained in the detention centre and found that no female doctor has been engaged for female inmates till today. However, one female nurse has been working there.”

Rohingya inmates reluctant to return to Myanmar

Rohingya inmates told the ASLSA team in August that they were not willing to go back to Myanmar because they did not feel safe. “They verbally requested for making necessary arrangements for resettlement to any third country and also requested to allow access to their wives and children housed in the female ward,” the team report said. The Bangladesh nationals, however, told the ASLSA team that they could be deported to their own country. The “Declared Foreign Nationals” detained in the camp told the team that they were Indian by birth and should be released from the camp.

The Supreme Court’s order on February 4 explained the different categories of “foreigners”: “Broadly, there are two categories of foreigners. One category is where the persons are declared as not Indian nationals and their nationality is known. The other category is where the Tribunal has declared that the persons are not Indian Nationals but their nationality is not known. As far as first category is concerned, it poses no difficulty. As far as second category is concerned, Union of India will have to tell the Court in what manner their cases will be dealt with because they are neither Indian Nationals nor their citizenship status is known. We grant time of one month to Union of India to file an affidavit dealing with this issue. While filing an affidavit, Union of India shall also place on record the details of the declared persons who are not Indian Nationals and the details of the persons who have been so far deported.”

On January 22, 2025, the Supreme Court directed the Assam Government to put on record reasons for detaining 270 foreign nationals in the Matia detention camp and details of the steps taken by the State government for deporting the detainees in the camp.

The January 22 order said: “We find from the annexure to the affidavit that some of the foreigners are languishing in the camps for about 10 years and more. The affidavit does not give any justification for detaining 270 persons and moreover, steps taken to deport them are not set out. This is a gross violation of the order of this Court.” In its order of December 9, 2024, the court had granted six weeks’ time to the State government for submitting an affidavit. This was the affidavit the court referred to on January 22.

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“As regards the detention centre/camp, the present affidavit deals with status of the detention camp as on 30th January 2025. It is the responsibility of the State government to ensure that all facilities in the detention centre/camp are properly maintained. We direct the State government to constitute a Committee of Officers who will make visit to the transit camp/Detention Centre once in a fortnight and will ensure that proper facilities are available in the detention camp,” the court said on February 4. The number of inmates in the Matia camp keeps fluctuating with 100 Foreigners Tribunals currently functional in the State. Altogether 1,00,076 cases were registered before the tribunals from 2001 until August 1, 2024.

NRC exclusions stoke apprehensions

The exclusion of 19.06 lakh applicants from the updated final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam has kept alive the apprehension of a substantial increase in the number of people declared as foreigners by the tribunals. The excluded NRC applicants will be able to challenge the rejection of their application only after the rejection slips are issued. The process is yet to start as the Registrar General of India has not notified the final list of exclusions.

The excluded applicants will get an opportunity to file appeals before the Foreigners Tribunals within 120 days of receiving notification on the exclusion. There can be appeals against tribunal decisions in the Gauhati High Court, and subsequently, the Supreme Court.

On August 22, 2024, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma informed the State Assembly that there are 119,570 “D” voters and that 54,111 “D” voters had been declared as foreigners by tribunals. He also informed the House that 27 declared foreigners had been deported since 2017. He said that from 1971 to 2014, 47,928 people were declared by tribunals to be foreigners; 20,613 of them were Hindus and 27,309 were Muslims.

On July 5, 2024, the Political (B) Department, Government of Assam, issued instructions to the Border Police wing of Assam Police not to refer cases of persons belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, Jain and Christian communities who entered India prior to December 31, 2014, to the tribunals. The number of tribunals in Assam had increased to 300, with 200 more tribunals set up by the government. In 2022, the State government decided to discontinue the services of the 200 new tribunals.

The State government stated in the notification announcing the folding up of the additional tribunals that the utilisation of the services of the members of the additional 200 tribunals, along with administrative staff numbering 2,000 would be considered as and when the NRC was notified. A case challenging the State government order on discontinuation of services of the additional tribunals is pending before the apex court.

The increase in the number of declared foreigners will lead to a rise in the number of inmates at the Matia camp. Uncertainty over the citizenship status of 19.06 lakh excluded from the updated draft NRC has added to the complexities of the detection and deportation process. The absence of any extradition treaty between India and Bangladesh makes the fate of declared foreigners more uncertain and indefinite detention seems to be a likely possibility.

Sushanta Talukdar is a senior independent journalist based in Guwahati who has extensively covered the north-eastern region. Formerly a writer with The Hindu, he currently edits a bilingual online magazine called nezine.com.