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  • This detention center in India's Assam state

  • is set to open in a few months.

  • But India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi,

  • says it doesn't even exist

  • well this one is real.

  • And we went to the remote northeast corner of India

  • to see it for ourselves.

  • State officials and workers told us

  • this compound will house up to 3,000 detaineespeople who

  • are declared foreigners.

  • Reporter: “Why are the walls so high?”

  • But here's the thing: Many of the people

  • likely to be held here might not even

  • be foreigners at all.

  • The fear is that most of them will be Muslim.

  • And the state they live in is leading Modi's push

  • to change India into a more overtly Hindu nation.

  • Monavra Khatun is Muslim.

  • She says she was born and raised in India,

  • and has the documents to prove it.

  • Still, she was left off a roster of Indian citizens

  • in Assam.

  • Now, she must prove she's legal

  • or risk being sent to detention.

  • She's not alone.

  • Almost two million people were left off that list.

  • Soon, many will be called to a court like this one called

  • a Foreigners Tribunal.

  • These people have been marked as suspected foreigners.

  • They're bringing their documents to an official.

  • That person, appointed by the government,

  • will then decide if they're Indian citizens

  • or foreigners.

  • Mamoni Rajkumari was one of those officials.

  • She issued decisions in over 600 cases,

  • the majority she found, were Indian.

  • And then

  • She sued the government and told us

  • she was fired because she didn't declare

  • enough Muslims as foreigners.

  • But it was implied.

  • We found five more officials, like Rajkumari,

  • who accused the state of targeting Muslims.

  • Only one other would appear on camera.

  • The rest feared reprisal.

  • Kartik Roy said he started to face pressure a few years ago

  • when Modi's party, the B.J.P., took control in Assam.

  • When he didn't declare more Muslims as foreigners,

  • he said, he too was fired.

  • But how can someone with documents

  • who's lived for years as a citizen suddenly

  • be declared illegal?

  • Take Azbahar Ali.

  • This spelling error became grounds

  • for questioning his citizenship.

  • He lost his case at the Foreigners Tribunal,

  • and ended up going to jail for almost four years.

  • During that time, his family sold their land

  • to pay legal fees.

  • And his wife committed suicide.

  • Ali was released on bail.

  • But until he can convince the court that he's Indian,

  • his name will not appear on the citizenship list.

  • So he could end up back in detention.

  • And that list: It's riddled with clerical errors.

  • This man, Dukhdam Das, is also not on the list.

  • His case is pretty much identical to Ali's,

  • except for one key thing,

  • he's Hindu.

  • And as far as many in Modi's party are concerned,

  • that just means Indian.

  • So in December, the government doubled down.

  • It passed a new citizenship law

  • favoring all major religions in South Asia except Islam.

  • In Assam, that means Hindus who

  • are left off the botched list could

  • have their rights restored.

  • But across the country, critics

  • see the new law as the latest example

  • of Modi's anti-Muslim agenda.

  • Protests led to religious riots in India's capital.

  • More than 50 people died in the violence,

  • the majority of them Muslims.

  • But despite months of protesting,

  • Modi has not backed down.

  • In fact, officials in his government

  • have promised to make a country-wide registry

  • of citizens just like the one in Assam.

  • Modi has denied that that's his plan.

  • Asbahar Ali voted in the past, as only a citizen can.

  • But he may not get to exercise that right again.

This detention center in India's Assam state

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