Awaiting deportation in a city defined by displacement

NEW DELHI: In the quiet, residential lanes in northwest Delhi's Rohini Sector 18, is an ageing community hall, its faded brick facade blending into the quaint neighbourhood. Passersby may take it for a wedding hall past its prime—a relic of municipal planning, perhaps now used for meetings by local politicians or RWA.

- Hemani Bhandari and Karn Pratap Singh

A closer inspection puts such theories to rest. There's a police van outside. Officers smoke quietly in the shade. Inside, Bangladeshi nationals lie on mattresses, waiting for deportation. Whatever the hall may have been in the past, it is now a detention centre for illegal immigrants.

It's not the only one. Across Delhi — in gated colonies, buildings yet to be inaugurated, even hotels — makeshift detention centres have sprung up. In a city defined by displacement and migration, the state has built infrastructure of containment, mostly operating in public sight, but without widespread attention.

Behind the centres is a December order from the Delhi lieutenant governor VK Saxena, empowering the police, under directions from the Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO), to identify and detain undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants. With Lampur— the Capital's official detention centre near Narela—nearing its 500-person capacity, Delhi Police has begun converting community halls, budget hotels, even police posts into temporary holding facilities,

Since January, officials say, over 1,200 Bangladeshi nationals have been detained and deported. A senior police officer, who earlier served in the FRRO, said on the condition of anonymity, that the Lampur detention centre has three parts with a capacity of housing around 500 people in total, belonging to other countries — those awaiting deportation after the completion of their sentencing in Delhi jails for various crimes and those caught for visa violations and required deportation.

“These aren't hardened criminals,” said a senior police officer. “Lampur is meant for those who've committed crimes or require long-term holding. For most Bangladeshis, we just need a place to keep them before deportation. That's where these halls and buildings come in.”