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| Sunday, 18 April 2004 |
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Human smuggling: Interpol to assist CID by S. Selvakumar Following a series of incidents involving human smuggling to Italy from the shores of Sri Lanka, the Interpol has come to the assistance of the Sri Lanka Police to help curb this menace. "The poor and innocent youth are exploited promising greener pastures in Italy and other European countries and deceived into parting with sums ranging from Rs. 2 lakhs to Rs. 4 lakhs and a good majority of them are detained for several months in those countries if at all they managed to reach the shores of those countries and, if deported face rigorous imprisonment and pay heavy fines in addition to losing the monies paid notwithstanding the humiliation and suffering they undergo," a spokesman for the Criminal Investigation Department said. He said very recently the courts sentenced 269 Sri Lankans to a term of one year RI and fined each Rs. 50,000 and cases are yet to be filed against 15 to 20 agents who organised these foreign jaunts to these innocent youth. The modus operandi of these agents who are mainly fish mudalalis who own large boats is to load them from a point along the Western coast and make them to undergo a rigorous journey for a period of three to four weeks before reaching Cairo in Egypt through the Suez Canal. In Cairo the agents, charge 600 US dollars from each to smuggle them to Italy. The problem has become so acute that the CID has set up a special branch to deal with anti human smuggling operations and sought the assistance of the Interpol in Egypt to help curb these activities. "The main reason is that these youth are ignorant of the law, and there had been instances they fall sick while sailing on the rough seas and some have died for want of medical assistance", the CID warned prospective migrants. |
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