India: Detention centre in Bengaluru for foreigners to be operational soon

Bengaluru, Oct 17 (PTI) Karnataka Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday said the detention centre for foreign nationals coming up on the city's outskirts, will be operationalised soon.

The minister also said the Bengaluru-specific anti-terrorist squad (ATS) probably will be operational in November first week.

"There is a detention centre ready near Nelamagala, it needs to operationalised, we have discussed it andthere will be no further delay in operationalising it," Bommai said.

Speaking to reporters here, he said the detention centre will be for foreign nationals involved in illegal activities, until they are deported.

Stating that there is already an ATS for Karnataka, theminister said, "our officers have been recommending for Bengaluru-specific ATS for a long time keeping in mind the volume of population, the influx, also intelligence and NIA inputs."

"Bengaluru-specific ATS is necessary, therefore the government has decided to have one Bengaluru specific ATS..probably it will be operational in the first week of November," he said, adding that it will work in coordination with state ATS and will be directly involved in city specific operations.

NIA officials recently said from 2014 to 2018, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) had set up 20-22 hideouts in Bengaluru and tried to spread its bases in South India.

On Bangladeshi immigrants in the state and howthey could be identified as most of them have Aadhaar and PAN cards and claim to be from the country's north east, Bommai said "There is an issue on hand, that is why I haveasked my senior officials to find solution, they are going to do it."

Bommai had recently said the BJP government inKarnataka was mulling introducing the National Register ofCitizens (NRC) in the State.