Lankan woman, kid in spot after taking Indian fest boat

Mar 06, 2012 - S.P. Loganathan |

Rameswaram

Tags:

Q branch on Monday arrested five pilgrims of a fishing boat that brought a Sri Lankan woman on return from Katchatheevu after the annual St Anthony church festival.

Indian pilgrims returned from the islet ceded to Sri Lanka by India in 1974 in mechanised and country boats after participating in the church festival. Along with her daughter Nira (5), a Sri Lankan woman by name Usha (31) had travelled to India in one of the Indian boats that returned from the islet.

Q branch arrested Usha along with her daughter after immigration officers confirmed her nationality upon her entry into India. Later, the crew of the boat in which she had travelled — Kannan, Pandi, Munesswaran, Ayudha Poojai and Kumaresan — were also apprehended and the boat seized. All of them were remanded in judicial custody.

Enquiries revealed that the woman had wanted to come to India as a refugee and hence had utilised the opportunity to cross borders. The crew had let her sail along with them only after a request made by Lankan navy.

Meanwhile, a communication from V. Mahalingam, Consul General, Consulate General of India at Jaffna, to Ramanathapuram SP said the boat owners were innocent since they followed the instructions of the Indian Consulate officials and the Lankan Navy.

He requested to release them and deal with Usha and her child in accordance with law. The Consul General also said that since Usha was stranded as the boat in which she had come to Katchatheevu had already left, she and her child were asked to board one of the Indian boats which was on its way to India.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/131839" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-ac9791c67acfc2489d1a984167b56844" value="form-ac9791c67acfc2489d1a984167b56844" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85429429" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>