Demand to convert Goalpara detention camp into hospital for COVID-19 patients

A prominent rights body has

demanded that an under-construction detention centre in Goalpara of western Assam be converted into a hospital for treatment of COVID-19 patients.

State coordinator of Mumbai-based NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) Zamser Ali said that the upcoming Goalpara detention centre, where approximately 10,000 people can be treated, should be converted into a hospital.

Currently, Assam has six detention centres within jail premises where persons declared as foreigners by Foreigners Tribunals are lodged.

Another detention centre is being constructed outside jail premises at Matia in Goalpara.

"The Assam government is loking for places far away from densely populated areas as isolation is important to check the spread of the virus.

 

"Turning this facility into a COVID-19 quarantine and treatment centre will reduce the amount of time, money or energy required for construction of a temporary or a permanent hospital as construction of boundary wall and cottages for inmates is almost complete.

Therefore, we urge the government to convert the under-construction Goalpara detention centre into a COVID-19 quarantine and treatment facility with immediate effect, Ali said.

Justifying his logic that a detention centre should not come up at Matia, he said "If we go through the government database as submitted in Parliament and the Assam Assembly from time to time, almost 98 per cent of the people living in the six detention centres in Assam have no link with foreign countries."

The remains of 29 people who have so far died in various detention centres of Assam, could not be sent to any foreign country but handed over to their Indian relatives, and their last rites were performed on Indian soil, he claimed.