Mangalore : Police Decide to Send Detained ‘Innocents’ Back to TN
Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NM)
Mangalore, Sep 9 : The Mangalore police who had detained 84 people from Tamil Nadu and thwarted all efforts to migrate them to Australia yesterday, have decided to send all the 84 detainees back to Tamil Nadu tagging them as ‘innocents’.
Addressing a press conference IGP (Western Range) Pratap Reddy said the police took the decision to send them after verifying their identities with the police counterparts in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. He said among the 84 detainees 48 are Srilankan refugees (42 men, 5 women and 1 child) registered in 18 different camps of Tamil Nadu. Of the remaining 8 (all men) are unregistered refugees of Sri Lankan origin, 21 are Tamilians (7 men, 10 women and 4 children), 4 from Kerala and 3 are from Karnataka. All these detainees will be sent back to Chennai (Tamil Nadu) in two buses after the completing all the necessary formalities in this direction.
The police produced the 13 accused before the District Magistrate and were taken for custodial interrogation. Among the accused 9 are Srilankan refugees, 3 are Tamilians and one is a Keralite. Madhav Suvarna, owner of “Shri Raksha” boat who had sold it to the accused, is also detained, the IGP said.
The IGP also revealed that the detainees complained about the poor living conditions in the refugee camps in Tamilnadu which compelled them to take the drastic step of migrating to Australia. When asked how these 84 people will be rehabilitated in Tamil Nadu Pratap Reddy said “we have done our duty and now it is the responsibility of the government to look after the refugees of these camps”. He also added that detailed report will be sent to concerned authorities in Tamil Nadu in this connection.
Lured by Better Lifestyle
According to the police, the 14 accused lured the 84 victims of more opportunities and better lifestyle apart from providing Australian citizenship, adding that one batch of 1000 people had already left from India. More importantly, the accused succeeded in convincing these victims by showing the photographs of the earlier batch who they presumed were having a better lifestyle. These victims were promised by the accused to take them to Christmas Island of Australia. However, it’s learnt that there was no tie up from the other side to accept the 84 people, he maintained.
Failed Attempts
The police revealed that the accused had tried unsuccessfully twice to send these victims to Australia from Kerala. Both the times the accused had fled from the scene and had evaded arrest. Having failed in Kerala and due to tough security measures in Tamil Nadu the accused thought of an alternative of sending them from Mangalore and were caught by Mangalore police. .
Pratap Reddy said that three police personnel from Tamil Nadu along with Inspector Srinivas had come down to Mangalore from Tamil Nadu to assist the police in handling the case.