Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated Gujarat's second Joint Interrogation Centre (JIC), a detention facility for foreigners apprehended for their illegal presence on Indian soil, in Ahmedabad on Thursday. With the first JIC in Kutch being both overcrowded and situated in a remote location, the Ahmedabad JIC is being seen as centrally located which could facilitate greater cooperation between intelligence and investigation agencies. In the works since 2009, the Ahmedabad JIC got the Ministry of Home Affairs' nod in 2014. It was noted that the JIC in Bhuj, Kutch, which falls under the Border Range of Gujarat Police, is not only an old structure but is overcrowded to about 200% of capacity. While the number of foreign detainees varies over time, several sources confirmed that against a capacity of 70 persons, the Bhuj JIC holds in excess of 140 to 150 persons at any given time. During the inauguration of the Ahmedabad facility on October 3, MoS, Home, Harsh Sanghavi said, “In the last two-and-a-half years alone, a total of 74 Pakistan nationals, 14 Afghanistan nationals, and six Iran nationals have been detained in Gujarat.” While inaugurating the JIC, Shah said that the JIC would enable central agencies and Ahmedabad police to conduct inquiries in a “correct and scientific manner during riots, terrorist attacks, and other situations of unrest”. Not a prison According to Deputy Commissioner of Police Jayrajsinh Vala, who heads the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Ahmedabad city police, the new JIC has 16 barracks for men. “At a capacity of four men to a barrack, 64 male detainees can be housed here. There are two barracks for women, which can accommodate six each,” Vala told The Indian Express. Notably, the JICs are not prisons, but “detention centres”. Foreign nationals are held in these facilities under section 5 of The Foreigners Order, 1948, which deals with the “powers to grant permission to depart from India”. According to Vala, “Foreigners (that are) illegally (present) on Indian soil may not be accused of any crime, but are merely detained by the SOG. They are provided adequate temporary living facilities till they are either under probe and can be booked by any investigation agency, or they are cleared to leave India and can be deported to their home countries. Those foreign nationals who are facing cases but have been granted bail by the court and still need to be detained are also placed in the JIC.” Another officer who has investigated detenues at a JIC, said, “In the Gujarat context, whenever a foreign national is apprehended, either entering illegally through the land border at the Line of Control (LOC), crossing the Indian maritime border line (IMBL) in our waters or caught living in our cities illegally from some other border, we need to check whether their presence here is a bonafide mistake or they are here with malafide intention. There are cases of fishermen crossing over unknowingly, others can cross over seeking refuge and so on. But then there are those who could have come over for terrorism or sabotage activities. The JIC provides a facility where all agencies can conduct their investigations at the same time.” Notably, The Indian Express had earlier reported that four Pakistan nationals had died in the Bhuj JIC between November 2020 and January 2021. Why Ahmedabad? Ahmedabad JIC, located close to the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport (SVPIA), serves two purposes. Its location in Central Gujarat makes it equidistant to all parts of the state unlike Kutch which is on the periphery. Besides, several central intelligence, enforcement, investigation and security agencies like the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the state and central Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Border Security Force (BSF), Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and Customs Department, have offices in the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar region. The new facility is also meant to relieve the load of detainees that were neither caught on land nor maritime borders, but apprehended and brought in for questioning from the interior cities. The Ahmedabad SOG compound currently houses 53 (43 men, 10 women) foreign detainees. These include only 21 detainees from the maritime border including Pakistan and Iran nationals. The other 32 detainees are Bangladesh nationals detained mostly by Ahmedabad Police.With final touches and amenities still being installed at the Ahmedabad JIC, the detainees are likely to be moved to the new facility in a couple of days. Who will run the JIC? The Ahmedabad JIC will be run by the SOG, which is ultimately under the control of the Ahmedabad Commissioner of Police (CP) Gyanender Singh Malik, who has earlier served as the IG of the Gujarat Frontier of the BSF. The JIC itself will be administered by a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) rank officer with other staff comprising a Police Inspector (PI), two Police Sub-Inspectors (PSIs) and 24 personnel. It will also have its own kitchens and cooks to run it. Joint interrogation The Ahmedabad JIC has a total of three interrogation rooms where multiple agencies can conduct their interrogations at the same time. It also has three investigation rooms where different agencies working their cases can set up their base simultaneously. In addition, the Ahmedabad JIC houses a special room where lie-detection tests can be conducted by forensic experts. Regarding the process of “joint interrogation”, a senior officer, on condition of anonymity, said, "When there is a foreign national of interest who has been detained, they are brought to the JIC. All the central and state agencies involved in the case then decide on the dates and conduct the interrogation together. A joint interrogation report is prepared and submitted to higher authorities for further action.”
