Guwahati, March 1: The Gauhati High court on Tuesday termed “prima facie unacceptable” and pulled up the Assam government’s decission for converting part of the Matia Transit camp meant for ‘illegal foreigners’ into a ‘temporary jail” to house those arrested in state’s recent drive against child marriage.
At least 350 people have been imprisoned in Matia since February 5, following a space shortage in existing jails due to mass arrests in the ongoing drive.
The state Home Department officially notified a part of it as a “temporary jail”, until further orders.
Chief Justice of Gauhati HC, Sandeep Mehta, told state Advocate General D Saikia in Tuesday’s hearing: “This is something strange and prima facie unacceptable. What is the justification? If you want to enhance your prison capacity, do it in the place where your prisons are constructed. Why do you need to convert this detention centre to a prison?”
The hearing by a division bench of Chief Justice Mehta and Justice Soumitra Saikia was centred on a batch of habeas corpus petitions, which challenged the detention of convicted and declared foreign nationals in Assam’s jails.
On Tuesday, the petitioners argued that with Matia now officially notified as a jail, “all the bona fides that they [government] had submitted till date was set to nought.”
Advocate General Saikia submitted that he will get instructions and “correct ourselves if we are wrong.” He said, “I have to get up-to-date information, but prima facie what I have got to know is that the capacity of this campus consists of 3,000 persons. Hardly less than 200 persons are there in detention.”
