The arrest of three runaway Sri Lankan Tamils at Dhanushkodi on Tuesday has revealed that an eagle eye network is functioning clandestinely across the state and in the Island Nation to cheat the Lankan refugees with lucrative offers of a better life in Australia.
A senior police officer said that the network had spread its tentacles to all the refugee camps across the state. The camps housed Lankan Tamils who sought shelter in Tamil Nadu during the ethnic strife in that country. The officer said that while the refugees had permission to go out and work they were required to be back by 6 pm.
These refugees are lured by dubious agents over opportunities of better prospects in Australia. Many of them fall prey to their deceitful ways, the officer said.
Last month, the Indonesian government detained 84 refugees. The network had even fanned out across Sri Lanka and the agents were sending the gullible men to India in exchange for money.
After the end of the war in 2009, India declared that the Tamil Nadu police would not consider as refugees those entering India and foreigners seeking asylum in India.
Though the trio were arrested by police for entering India without valid documents, the cops are yet to trace the agents.
Meanwhile, the three Sri Lankan Tamils, who landed in Arichalmunai near Dhanushkodi on Tuesday, were book under the Foreigners Act and on Wednesday produced before a court that sent them to the Puzhal prison. Police sources said that the parents of the three youth, Prasanth of Mullaitivu, and Vijayaraj and Vasantha Kumar of Paruthithurai, had sent them to Dhanushkodi from Sri Lanka by an illegal ferry on Tuesday. On reaching Dhanushkodi, they were detained by the police.
The Q Branch, IB team and other police units conducted inquiries with them to ascertain the reason for coming here. During interrogation, the trio revealed that they had come here to travel to Australia. An agent had apparently organised for their journey. The police took their finger prints and photos and produced them before a Rameswaram court that remanded them to custody in Puzhal prison.