11 Africans on hunger strike against detention freed

NEW DELHI - Eleven Africans who had gone on a hunger strike to demand their release from detention centres have been freed but now face uncertainty over their stay in India.

A statement by NGO People’s Union for Civil Liberties said five men at the Restricted Foreigner’s Detention Camp in Lampur in north Delhi and six women at Nari Niketan in Tihar Jail were released Friday night. It was, however, a bittersweet moment for them.

“We don’t have any place to stay. Some of us are with embassies, but others are living with friends,” said 34-year-old Jimmy Oteba of Uganda, who is now living at a friend’s place in south Delhi.

Joshua Mensah from Ghana, another of those released, first plans to go to Foreigners Regional Registration Office to get his visa extended.

“I have to remain in India, as government will appeal against our acquittal in a higher court,” Mensah told IANS.

Their passports are still with the authorities.

“I don’t have anything here. I don’t know what I am going to do,” said Mensah.

Oteba was arrested under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act at the Indira Gandhi International Airport when he was going back home in October 2005.

After four years, he was discharged by court for lack of evidence.

“But from Tihar I was taken to Lampur, which was again a prison,” Oteba told IANS.

He then banded with other fellow Africans to pressurize them to be set free.

They wrote a letter in March to President Pratibha Patil, (then) chief justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, the home ministry and their respective embassies complaining about ill-treatment at the Lampur detention centre for foreigners.

“I am educated. I know about Gandhi and satyagraha, so we went on hunger strike,” said Oteba, who is the sole breadwinner of his family.

The eleven foreigners had gone on hunger strike from June 1.

The five men are from Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda and were arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.