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In all, over 3,500 foreigners from 35 different countries are stranded in several parts of India, consistent with sources at the Ministry of Home Affairs. Among them are pregnant women and several elderly persons in need of urgent medical care.
But the condition of 129 foreigners in Tamil Nadu – among them a minimum of 12 women, some young mothers – has arguably been the worst.
In April, the Tamil Nadu government initially registered 15 different FIRs across the state, then administered multiple joint inter-district operations and bundled the foreigners into prison. While most of them were picked up from different mosques and personal residential centres where that they had quarantined themselves, 10 Malaysians were detained just minutes before they were to board a special flight sent by the malaysian government.
Ever since, the arrested foreign nationals have tried every legal remedy available to urge themselves out of jail and secure their journey back home. But the state has been unrelenting in its ways.
Over a month after their arrest, when the Madras supreme court first granted bail to 6 Thai nationals on May 6, the Tamil Nadu government, rather than making arrangements for their release, issued a government order and further kept them under detention. The order, issued on May 8 by state governor Banwarilal Purohit, barren of any grounds for further detention, states: “In exercise of the powers conferred under section 3 (2)(e) of the Foreigners Act, 1946…. the governor of Tamil Nadu hereby orders that they shall reside within the special camp at Puzhal, Chennai district, within the event of their release.”
With this order, the Tamil Nadu government became the sole state to line up a bullpen under the Foreigners Act within the middle of the continued pandemic. Even states which have existing detention centres haven't made use of these establishments, but the Tamil Nadu government decided to convert a Borstal School – meant for young adults in conflict with the law – into a bullpen . The government has been categorising this found out as a ‘temporary camp’ and not a bullpen , but lawyers and activists call this a “false distinction”.
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