Source – thewire.in<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New Delhi:\u00a0<\/strong>The Karnataka high court on Thursday\u00a0asked\u00a0the state government to spell out its plan for detaining \u2018illegal immigrants\u2019 in the state. The court has given the government time till November 26 to file an affidavit with details of detention centres in the state and plans to detain immigrants who do not have the required paperwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court\u2019s directive came when it was hearing a bail plea filed on behalf of 14 alleged undocumented immigrants who\u00a0were\u00a0arrested in 2018 from near Bengaluru. Hearing the matter,\u00a0Justice K.N. Phaneendra also sought a guarantee from the state government that the human rights of those identified as undocumented immigrants would not be violated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sirajuddin Ahmed, one of the petitioning lawyers,\u00a0told\u00a0The News Minute<\/em>,\u00a0\u201cThe court has asked for a permanent solution to the detention of foreigners without documents. It is not just about these 15 petitioners but about all foreigners without documents in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently, as the state does not have detention centres, it has kept the alleged undocumented immigrants in a prison in Bengaluru. The state government also informed the court that currently there are 612 undocumented immigrants in Karnataka and it is considering setting up a detention centre in every district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has also identified 35 locations where undocumented immigrants can be housed until the time detention centres are ready. These would be used to house those detainees who have been released on bail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July, Karnataka\u00a0was the first state after Assam\u00a0to announce its intention to build detention centres to hold undocumented immigrants. The state also toyed with conducting an exercise similar to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam,\u00a0before shelving it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lawyer representing the Ministry of Home Affairs in the matter\u00a0told\u00a0the court that the state will make efforts to deport to Bangladesh the 58 alleged undocumented immigrants who had been arrested on October 25. But, in the event, that they are not accepted by Bangladesh, the state will have to provide for them at a cost to the public exchequer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hearing the matter, Justice K.N. Phaneendra said that he was concerned about the status of undocumented immigrants after they are released on bail, since they would still be undocumented in the eyes of the state. \u201cTheir human rights must not be violated,\u201d he said, and sought a guarantee from the state that their basic needs would be taken care of in the temporary locations where they are being held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The development comes a day after the home minister Amit Shah\u00a0said\u00a0in parliament that his government intends to conduct the NRC process for the entire country to identify undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The process, which has been implemented in Assam, puts the onus of proving citizenship on the residents of the country. In Assam, residents were\u00a0required to be able to establish\u00a0with the help of documents that their families were living in India before March 24, 1971. After the process ended, over 19 lakh residents were found to not possess adequate documents to be able to prove this and were thus excluded from the register. They will now have to appeal before the Foreginers\u2019 Tribunals before being declared as foreigners.<\/p>\n