THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) are being intensified all over the country. In Kerala too, many people took to the streets with protests. In between this, a national media reported that the government is planning to set up detention centers in the state. However, this propaganda is totally baseless and the government has not taken such a decision, clarified the office of the chief minister. The allegations regarding it are false, the procedures initiated by the previous government were stopped taking into account the present circumstances, a release of the chief minister said.

The release said that in August 2012 the center had sent a letter to all home secretaries of the states informing to set up detention centers. The center had written to state governments and union territories for setting up of detention/holding centres in various States/UTs for restricting the movement of illegal immigrants/foreign nationals awaiting deportation. It had also prepared a Model Detention Centre Manual and circulated the same to all State Governments/UT Administrations” in January this year.

Based on this letter, the home department had convened a meet on November 4, 2015. As per the decision of the meet, it was fixed to set up detention centre in the state. A decision was taken that the center should be under the department of social justice, the department should find the required building for it and the police department should find the staff needed for the work. The meet also took a decision that such centers should be outside the police jail department.

On February 29, 2016, the director of Social Justice Department was assigned to submit the recommendation for the establishment of a detention center. It was then decided that a managing committee comprising of social justice district officer and district superintendent of police would be appointed for this purpose. The social justice department of the secretariat asked the director of social justice the details including the people to be accommodated. Details were asked from the crime records bureau. The records bureau also did not provide any information about this. Reminders pertaining to the letter sent to the departments are constantly coming from the central government.