SYED ALI AHMED
NEW DELHI, APRIL 21
The first detention centre in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh and eleventh in the country, is under progress in Ghaziabad, less than 50 kms from the national capital and taking more than hour of travel by road. It is coming up at Nand Gram under the Sihani Police Station in Ghaziabad district.
It is not a new building under construction. The government is converting a SC/ST Hostel at Nand Gram, which was in a dilapidated condition and was out of use for quite some time, into a detention.
A Meerut based construction company has been given the contract to repair and convert it into a detention as per plan of the government.
A retired senior police officer based at Meerut is one of the members of its construction committee.
According to sources, the centre will have three big halls. About 100 people can be accommodated at a time at the centre.
While Ghaziabad District Magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey and SSP Kalanidhi Naithani neither confirmed nor denied of the detention centre being set up. “No comments”, was what they said in response to a question from India Tomorrow.
However, local BJP leader Ashok Sharma, who once contested assembly election on the ticket of Subhashwadi Samajwadi Party, confirmed that the work on the detention centre was going on.
However, he criticised the government the government’s move. “The government should concentrate on overcoming the pandemic, rather than targeting a particular community by construction a detention centre”, he said.
“I am a BJP leader. I am aware of the construction of the detention centre. But I am not in its favour. For me, the nation is first, not the politics. Construction of a detention centre is not a healthy politics”, he said.
Congress in-charge of the party’s Western Uttar Pradesh Rana Goswami, who is an MLA from Assam, said that “The government is doing this secretly”.
Sources in the district administration say that the centre would be used to detain foreign Tablighi Jamaat activists who have been detained at different places in the state on charges of violations of visa rules.
The foreign Tablighis, according to police, came on tourist visas but were involved in missionary work.
According to the sources, 167 foreigner Jamaatis are detained in Meerut zone alone. Of them, 38 are from Nepal and 129 from other countries. Cases are registered against them in different districts. Their passports have been confiscated. At present they are all either under quarantine or under treatment in police vigilance. They will be kept in the detention centre once their quarantine period is over.
BSP MP from Amroha, Kunwar Danish Ali said, “It seems that government’s priorities to fight against coronavirus are not clear. When government says that it does not have fund for MPLAD schemes, how can it manage funds for detention centre?”
“At this crucial time when hundreds of people have died of Corona virus and thousands are hospitalized, doctors do not have kits for check-up, hospitals lack ventilators and other medical necessities, the government should strengthen country’s health services, leaving all issues behind”, said Danish Ali.
(Syed Ali Ahmed is the Chief Editor of indiatomorrow.net)
