RAMANATHAPURAM: IN what may be a major security breach, a Turkish national was arrested in Rameswaram on Saturday after illegally entering India in a boat from Sri Lanka, slipping past the Indian Coast Guard, Navy and Marine police of the Coastal Security Group.
Fisher families, residing at Serankottai near the Naval camp alerted police on spotting the man, identified as Mahir Devrim (43), on the seashore asking for directions to town after being reportedly dropped off by a Jaffna fisherman.
Rameswaram Jetty police, who arrested him, said Devrim had arrived from Malaysia at Sri Lanka’s Colombo airport on March 28. Keen on visiting India, he went to Jaffna and asked fishermen to ferry him to India. One obliged for 25,000 Sri Lankan rupees.
“They left Jaffna around noon on April 7 on a fibre boat. The fisherman dropped Devrim off in the evening,” said a senior cop. Police said Devrim left Turkey in 1996 owing to government pressure on a revolutionary group of which he was a member, and had since visited Russia, China, Malaysia, etc on tourist visa. A senior Coast Guard official said ICG was probing if this was a case of security breach.