The countrys biggest “detention centre”, now renamed “transit camp” for a human touch at Matia in lowerAssamsGoalparadistrict, has become operational with the first batch of inmates being shifted to the newly built facility from another transit camp at the Goalpara district jail on Friday. The transit camp was built at a cost of around Rs 64 crore.
Official sources in the prison department said that altogether there are around 219 “declared foreigners” lodged in all the transit camps in Assam, including the standalone transit camp in Matia. Before the Matia centre became operational, all the inmates were being kept in these six jails. The detention centres, which housed people declared foreigners by foreigners , quasi-judicial bodies, were renamed transit camps in 2021.