11 Africans on hunger strike against detention released

NEW DELHI - Eleven Africans who had gone on a hunger strike to demand their release from a detention centre have been freed, civil rights activists and officials said Saturday.

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 late Friday night.

An official of the detention centre confirmed the release.

The Africans had claimed that they were detained despite being either acquitted or having completed their sentences.

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.

They had gone on an indefinite hunger strike June 1 to demand their release.

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