Thirteen people — one woman and 12 men — have been arrested after allegedly attempting to travel to India by sea, Ada Derana reported. The Daily Mirror carried the same account.
The group reached India but was turned back by Indian customs officials. On their return to Sri Lanka on Sunday, they were taken into custody by officers of the Department of Immigration and Emigration and handed over to Kankesanthurai Police.
They are being held at the Kankesanthurai Police Station and were due to be produced before court today.
They came from across the south and east, not the north
The 13 are named as residents of Karunkodithivu, Mampitiya, Medawachchiya, Haldummulla, Wellawaya, Monaragala, Mavadichenai, Balangoda, Trincomalee, Badulla and Pottuvil.
Only Medawachchiya sits in the north-central dry zone; the rest cluster in the Uva and Sabaragamuwa hill country — Haldummulla, Wellawaya, Monaragala, Balangoda, Badulla — and on the east coast at Trincomalee and Pottuvil. None is from the Jaffna peninsula, where the crossing was staged and where they were ultimately detained.
That spread is the notable detail. A group drawn from at least eight administrative districts, most of them hundreds of kilometres from the northern coast, travelled to the far north to leave by boat. Neither report says how they were recruited, who organised the crossing, or whether any organiser has been identified.
Context
Kankesanthurai is the departure point for the licensed passenger ferry to India and has been used before as a checkpoint against irregular movement — 26 passengers were detained there in June over suspected gold smuggling before boarding the India service.
Sri Lankan authorities have also warned young people against irregular migration routes after nationals were rescued from traffickers abroad.
Not reported
Neither Ada Derana nor the Daily Mirror named the suspects, said where or when the boat departed, identified the vessel, or reported where in India the group was intercepted. Neither said what the 13 intended to do in India, whether they paid an agent, what charges they face, or whether the boat’s operator was among those arrested. Both accounts appear to derive from the same police release and add nothing to one another.
