The Maharashtra Home Ministry has reportedly written to the Navi Mumbai planning authority asking for a 3-acre plot in Nerul to build the state's first detention centre.
Sources within the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) said they have received a letter, although the size of the plot is not fixed yet.
“We have identified a plot, but I will not be able to divulge any further details,” said Sanjay Kumar, additional chief secretary (home) told Hindustan Times.
The identified plot currently houses a shelter home for women in distress, according to HT.
The Centre, in July, had asked all states and Union Territories to set up at least one detention centre each, with modern amenities for illegal migrants, so that they can be traced easily when deportation is legally ordered.
After the NRC list in Assam, which declared 19 lakh people as foreigners, the move left many on Twitter wondering if a similar exercise was underway in Maharashtra.
The news comes even as Maharashtra gears up for its state elections later this year.
Shiv Sena leader Arvind Sawant told news agency ANI last week that he “wanted a similar exercise like NRC to be held in Maharashtra to drive out the Bangladeshis living in the state.”
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)