NAGAPATTINAM: Days ahead of the 44th Chess Olympiad, being hosted in Tamil Nadu, a Polish national was arrested on Monday for illegally entering India through Kodiyakarai in Nagapattinam district on an inflatable kayak.
Various law enforcement agencies, including the Indian Navy, expressed concerns about the man’s entry even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate the Olympiad in Chennai on July 28. Vedaranyam police, which had started a probe after the kayak was spotted near Kodiyakarai on Sunday, found that 40-year-old Wladyslaw Franoszek Matuszewski had arrived on it from Sri Lanka.
Police said Matuszewski managed to evade police and security agencies for hours on Monday as he hiked about 15 km from the shore to the neighbouring village of Arukatuthurai, though he had been sighted Sunday evening. The Vedaranyam police finally found him and took him to the Town Police Station for questioning.
“We learnt the man had visited Sri Lanka as a tourist around 2019. He says he was arrested for an altercation near Weligama in Sri Lanka months ago. As his passport was seized, he was unable to leave the country. He decided to enter India illegally believing he could return home from here. We will communicate details of his arrest to the Embassy of Poland,” Nagapattinam SP G Jawahar told TNIE.
According to Inspector S Supriya from Vedaranyam, the man had claimed to be a car sales consultant. “He had come out on bail in Sri Lanka and came to India so that he can pass through cities like Chennai, New Delhi, and Nepal’s Kathmandu,” she said.
Polish man spent day near forest before arrest
Matuszewski initially cooperated with the investigation before asking to the Polish Embassy. According to police, Matuszewski arrived on Sunday, slept and spent the day near the reserve forest at Kodiyakarai. In the evening, he walked up to Arukatuthurai and was seen by local fishers.
“The foreigner was roaming near the main road around 10 pm when our men spotted him. He asked us in English for directions to the nearest ATM. Though we offered him a lift, he refused and asked us the way to Chennai. Our men became suspicious and informed the police.
He has a four-digit number tattooed on his throat,” M Murugan, a fisherfolk representative from Arukatuthurai, told TNIE. Matuszewski allegedly bought the kayak online in Sri Lanka. Experts, under condition of anonymity, said it is unlikely the man could have rowed the entire way from Jaffna in Sri Lanka to Point Calimere (35 nautical miles) due to the unpredictable weather and waters.
They suspect Sri Lankans dropped him near Indian waters on a motorised boat after which he inflated the kayak and covered the remaining distance. Matuszewski, who was booked under the Foreigners Act (1946) and Passports Act (1967), was produced before a magistrate in Vedaranyam and remanded in judicial custody at Puzhal Prison.