Under-construction detention centres, at Kadamtola Gopalpur village in Goalpara district of Assam on August 29, for those not included in the NRC.

55-year-old 'doubtful' voter of Koch tribe had come to India in 1964

Naresh Koch has become the 29th person to die in one of Assam’s detention camps. Koch’s death comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi denied the existence of the camps at a rally in the national capital on December 22. Koch had a day earlier suffered paralysis after a stroke at a detention camp in the Goalpara district jail in lower Assam. He was taken to the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital where he died on the night of January 3. Koch was around 55 years old. Koch had lived in a village, Tinkonia para, under police station Mornoi, in Goalpara. He had come to India in 1964 but it is not known with whom. People of several tribes — Garos, Kochs and Hajongs, among others — had migrated from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and settled in Meghalaya and lower Assam. The Koch are scheduled tribes in Meghalaya but not in Assam.

The frame of one of the centres.

(AP)