The Prisoners Right Forum, an organisation based in Tamil Nadu, has written to Chief Minister MK Stalin and the Home Secretary, seeking to bring 38 Sri Lankan nationals who are jailed in Karnataka to the state. In June 2021, 38 Sri Lankan nationals were arrested by the Mangaluru police for illegally entering India from three different locations in the city.
The letter, written by the forum director P Pugalenthi, pointed out that the 38 people from Sri Lanka were caught when they were travelling with their agents via Tamil Nadu and Mangaluru on the promise of being sent to Canada via the ship route. “The case was then transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), who conducted an investigation and found that the 38 persons were innocent and were cheated by agents. They were also released from the case by the NIA. However, they are still locked up in a Bengaluru jail without any case against them,” the letter stated.
Pugalenthi sought the intervention of the CM on ‘humanity basis’ to bring the 38 Sri Lankan nationals to Tamil Nadu and make necessary arrangements to send them back home to Sri Lanka. According to the police, the 38 persons had first entered India using the sea route in neighbouring Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi and later moved to Mangaluru via Bengaluru, and they were arrested based on intelligence inputs. The police also said that prima facie it was a case of human trafficking. “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)," the police had said.
Sri Lanka is currently grappling with unprecedented economic turmoil since its independence from Britain in 1948, driving several Sri Lankan nationals to turn up as refugees in Tamil Nadu.