The Union Home Ministry has asked emigration authorities in south India, including Kerala, to be on the lookout for Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) operatives fleeing the fighting in Sri Lanka. Official sources said the updated lookout notice for LTTE operatives had the details of more than 3,000 persons, including in some cases, their photographs.
They said it was possible that wanted LTTE men could crossover to India from Sri Lanka in fishing boats posing as refugees or fishermen, procure fake Indian passports and travel to the U.K, Europe, Singapore, Malaysia or Canada pretending as Indian citizens. Emigration authorities said that a Sharjah-based racket, having middlemen in Tamil Nadu (mainly in Thirunelveli and Rameswaram) and Kerala, was duplicating Indian passports for use by illegal emigrants.
Officials said these racketeers were duplicating even the latest "machine readable" Indian passports. They used an almost undetectable method to substitute the digitally imposed photographs on the passports without tampering the hidden security features on the thin film covering them.