Indian Police bust illegal refugees headed to Canada!

A human smuggling operation involving around 70 Sri Lankans, mostly Tamils from the North, was thwarted by the Karnataka Police on Friday (11). They travelled in boats to Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu in different batches, Ceylon Today learns. Thirty-eight of them had arrived on 17 March 2021in Tuticorin on a boat and  had travelled to Mangalore, Karnataka. They had been residing in lodges and houses in Mangalore, Karnataka Commissioner of Police Shashi Kumar told Ceylon Today on Friday. They had left for Mangalore due to elections in Tamil Nadu, he added. Investigations conducted jointly with Tamil Nadu intelligence revealed that another 40 illegal migrants had arrived in the State and had remained there. All of them had travelled to Tuticorin in boats from the Northern part of Sri Lanka, he said. “Each of them has paid their agents between Rs. 600,000 to Rs. 1 million and one of the agents was also nabbed in Tamil Nadu,” he said. The illegal migrants said that they wanted to go to Canada for job opportunities and some claimed they had contacts there. “They were assured of good jobsand better life,” the Police Commissioner added.

He said the illegal migrants were between the ages 18-30 and had arrived in Tuticorin, 145 nautical miles from Jaffna on 17 March when the State of Tamil Nadu was under lockdown due to COVID-19. Thirty eight of them were detained at the Police community hall in Mangalore and were produced in Court later that evening, he added. According to the Police Commissioner they were planning to leave for Canada from Mangalore.

https://uploads.ceylontoday.lk/epapers/files/CT-1-16-13-06-2021-CT.pdf