NRC: Foreign tribunals, border forces “pressured” to declare people as ‘foreigners’, finds Amnesty

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has hit out at the Narendra Modi and the Assam governments for gross human rights violations against persons declared as “foreigners” by Foreign Tribunals, noting that indefinite detention of “irregular foreigners” had become routine in the north-eastern Indian state.

Amnesty International has disturbingly found that “political pressure” on Assam’s security forces and the Foreigners’ Tribunal was widespread, with clear instructions from authorities to meet the “targets.”

The findings are part of a new report, Between Fear and Hatred: Surviving Migration Detention in Assam, released in New Delhi on Friday.

“Since 2015, there has been a rush to declare people as foreigners. There is pressure on tribunals to dispose off a large number of cases. Since 2016, between 1000 and 1,200 persons, on average, have been declared foreigners every month,” said Leah Verghese, an Amnesty India researcher, who worked on the report.

The suspected “foreigners” were being detained in violation of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution as well as international laws, which do no permit detention beyond a 90-day period, social activist Harsh Mander said lamented the fact that India wasn’t negotiating any extradition treaty with Bangladesh despite nearly forty lakh people not finding their names on the National Register of Citizens (NRC)

Noting that many of these persons were not even aware of the crimes they have committed to end up in detention centres, Verghese highlighted that 30 per cent of 1,037 detainees at six detention centres across the state had been declared as “foreigners” as of September 25, 2017.

Aman Wadud, a lawyer working on detention cases, told media persons that there were two ways in which the authorities were turning in people suspected of being as foreigners to Foreigner Tribunals.

“The first is through the Assam Border Force, the unit tasked with checking cross-border infiltration. The Assam Border Force has a presence in all police station of Assam and is given monthly targets. When there are not enough foreigners identified, they have no option but to manufacture illegal immigrants,” said Wadud.

“It’s a very arbitrary and a flawed process that they are following,” he added.

Going on to list the second approach being followed by authorities, Wadud said that lower level election officials were arbitrarily identifying D-voters on electoral rolls and sending their reports to the higher-ups, who then were presenting these cases at the Foreigner Tribunals.

“Even Foreigner Tribunals have been asked to meet targets,” he added.

Abdul Kalam Azad, another researcher associated with Amnesty’s report, informed reporters that the lion’s share of detainees at these detention centers came from predominantly three cultural backgrounds.

“The first category is that of Muslims- Assamese and Bengali. The second category is that of Bengali Hindus, many of who have been living in Assam for decades. The third category of people is ethnic Assamese, which includes both Hindus and Muslims,” said Azad.

Noting that the suspected “foreigners” were being detained in violation of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution as well as international laws, which do no permit detention beyond a 90-day period, social activist Harsh Mander said lamented the fact that India wasn’t negotiating any extradition treaty with Bangladesh despite nearly forty lakh people not finding their names on the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

“These detainees, which include 31 children, face a very uncertain future,” said Mander, formerly the Special Monitor of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), who visited the detention centres in Goalpara and Kokrajhar districts.

Mander further highlighted that trauma and fears over their futures had started to take its toll on the detainees, with high-levels of depression common among suspected foreigners.