Christmas for some, just another day at work for others. Laborers at Matia in Assam are working through the holiday period to get India’s largest #detention camp ready by the end of January 2020. These videos were shot by @Suyash_Esoteric #NRC_CAA_Protests
The Prime Minister may deny this place exists, but everyone here - the labourers and the many people we stopped to ask for directions know exactly what it is. “Bangladeshi aur foreigner ka jail,” one labourer said. When it’s ready, it will house 3000 “illegal foreigners.”
According to official records, there were 1043 “foreigners” in six detention camps, housed in several district jails, in Assam. 28 of them are now dead, including a 45 day old baby. Those who remain have little recourse to legal or medical aid.
Thousands of others fear they may be sent to detention at any moment, and that’s why even on Christmas Eve, petitioners were milling outside these “foreigner tribunals.” All of them clutching on to stacks of documents that could end up deciding whether they are Indian or not. 
Most of you already know Mohammed Sanaullah’s story, but it bears repeating. Man served in the Indian army for 30 years in critical service areas like Kashmir and Imphal, only to be declared a “foreigner” a year after he retired.
Today he asks that if there are no detention camps in India, what do we call the place he was held in for 11 days? “But, I still have faith in the Indian judiciary that they will resolve my case,” he says cautiously. I get the sense that he is more Indian than most of us.
