Detention deficit

Centres to house illegal migrants is a bad idea

The home ministry’s order to state governments to set up at least one detention centre in a city or district where an immigration check post is located, as reported by The Economic Times, raises afresh discomfiting questions about the government’s broader social agenda centred on citizenship. The order in the form of a “Model Detention Manual” comes ahead of the August 31 deadline for the controversial exercise in Assam to finalise its citizens’ register and raises the spectre of a nationwide national citizens’ register, which the first Modi government had proposed. Home ministry officials say the idea behind the order