The 24 Sri Lankan nationals who were detained in September from Kollam were planning to travel by boat from Kollam to Australia or Canada, according to the police. All necessary arrangements appeared to have been made by the so-called agent, Lakshmana. The police are still searching for him.
The arrested Sri Lankans include a five-year-old autistic child and a five-month pregnant woman, said Rahul V I, a Kerala-based counsel for 11 Sri Lankans who were arrested by the police from a lodge on Kollam Beach Road on September 2. He told The New Indian Express, ''It saddens me that the people who were arrested were in fact victims of poverty and destitution. Their country is in a mess and the situation there is not at all conducive for them to live. I have spoken with each of them and I understood how much struggle they had gone through."
Some of the people who are currently lodged in prison lived comfortably in Sri Lanka. Rahul said he found it extremely difficult how immigrants could have crossed the Indian Peninsula with their goal to arrive in Australia or Canada's east coast in a boat that is not designed for long-distance travel.
"A few people who seek refuge in other countries had enjoyed good lives in Sri Lanka earlier but, as the nation's economy collapsed completely, they chose to flee. The majority of the time, they would be employed by an agency that would arrange everything for their travel. They would try to get to Western nations later in boats. They would presumably attempt to finish the entire voyage in one go, although that is very unsafe and often unsuccessful," he said.
"Another possibility is that all of these immigrants would first infiltrate the island country, which is largely anarchic, and then ask the Western nations for political asylum. Moreover, the refugees would use only water transportation rather than flights, as the immigrant-receiving country may force the airline company to take the refugees back to their respective countries."
Most of the Sri Lankan refugees try to relocate especially to Western nations, according to a senior government official. Refugees use political asylum as a means of gaining entry into affluent nations, particularly nations that have English as the official language such as Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, he said.
According to him, the refugees would pay an agent anything between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 60 lakh, and the agency would never have contact with the refugees directly. Most of the refugees would also never interact with the agents in person. The security forces are mostly unaware of these operatives' identities, and it is yet unclear how they will interact with the immigrants.
"As a means of entry, the refugees would use political asylum. After some time, they settle in the country they arrive in permanently. Refugees are increasingly drawn to nations that have democratic and human rights-based institutions and governing structures. It would be the primary cause of these refugees' refusal to travel legally to the Middle Eastern nations and their preference to take great risks to enter Western nations illegally," he stated.
In most cases, the relatives of the immigrants would act as agents, according to the government official. These relatives would have been Sri Lankan nationals who had migrated to Western nations illegally earlier. They would have obtained citizenship in those countries using the ruse of political asylum. Later, they would return to the country of their birth and attempt to move their relatives through nefarious means to industrialised nations. In some cases, they take up the transportation of refugees as a permanent job because of the large amounts of money the people desperate to leave the nation would shell out, the official said.
The refugees would be transported via boat which might not even have the most basic sanitisation facilities. Over 90% of the time, the travel would be unsuccessful because the boat would typically be congested with people. People are still eager to take the chance, though, because they are promised a high standard of living in these industrialised countries, he added.