Assam Detention Centres have Nothing to do with Centre, Says Himanta Biswa Sarma

Guwahati, December 23, 2019:

A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi dismissed the existence of detention centres in the country, Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was seen backing his statement and claimed that the “PM is very right.”

Responding to a query on the recent statement of Modi, Sarma said that the detention centres had nothing to do with the central government. Although he refrained from stating that detention centres do exist in India, he said, “The centre has never told the Assam state government to create detention centres. These have been exclusively constructed in Assam because of the judicial order of Gauhati High Court.”

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Reiterating, “It has nothing to do with the central government,” he added, “The PM is very correct when he said that central government has not created any detention centre.”

He was speaking at a press meet in Guwahati when he was posed questions on Assam’s detention centres. Sarma carefully avoided further questions on the topic calling himself a “small person”. He said, “I am just the Finance Minister of Assam. I am a very small person. So please don’t ask me questions related to Delhi, New York but as far as Assam’s detention centre is concerned.”

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The Finance Minister also informed that the state government was monitoring the social media posts generated from the state since February 2, 2019. He said that action will be taken against the ones who had posted provocative messages on social media. “We would like to inform you that we were monitoring the social media activities since February 2, 2019 and we found that around 206 social media posts were objectionable. These posts carried content that incited hatred and rumors,” he informed.

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The state government had registered cases against 28 such posts. “Ten people were arrested. Five were released immediately on bail and five have been sent to judicial custody. 58 posts were deleted,” announced Sarma, adding that investigations are on.

The Finance Minister also states that 244 cases have been registered so far in connection to the violence over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and 393 people have been arrested.

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