Police in Mangaluru on Friday detained 38 Sri Lankan nationals for illegally entering India from three different locations in the city. According to senior police officers, these accused had first entered India using the sea route in neighbouring Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi and later moved to Mangaluru via Bengaluru. “According to intelligence inputs, we were told that 38 Sri Lankan nationals had entered India sometime in March and they shifted to Mangaluru via Bengaluru sometime in last month,” Mangaluru City Police Commissioner N Sashi Kumar told TNM.
Acting on intelligence provided by Tamil Nadu police, Mangaluru police took action. The Commissioner added that another seven Indian nationals have been arrested for helping these Sri Lankan nationals. All the accused have been booked under relevant sections of the Human Trafficking, Passport Act, Foreigners Act and cheating under the Indian Penal Code.
The Police Commissioner said prima facie this is a case of human trafficking. The Sri Lankan foreign affairs officials have got in touch with the police. “The Sri Lankan nationals were apparently told that they will be taken to Canada. They have told us each of them have paid an agent-based in Sri Lanka to the tune of Rs 6-10 lakh Sri Lankan rupees (around Rs 3 lakh)," he said.
Incidentally, this incident involving Sri Lankans comes a day after a Pakistani national, who was staying illegally with her husband at Bhatkal in neighbouring Uttara Kannada district since 2015 with her three children was arrested on Thursday. She has been arrested and remanded to judicial custody, police said. In that case, the accused Khadija Mehrin, a Pakistani national, married Mohiddin Rukkuddin from Bhatkal in 2014 in Dubai.
She had travelled on a tourist visa to India for three months and in 2015, she entered India. Police added that during her stay, she gave birth to three children. She also obtained a ration card, Aadhaar card, PAN card and a Voter Identity Card.
Following a tip-off, she was arrested and was produced before a local court which remanded her to judicial custody, police said.
(With PTI inputs)