Chennai a transit hub for Lankan Tamils

Chennai is fast emerging as the transit hub for illegal immigrants, especially Sri Lankan Tamils from LTTE dominated areas, going to Europe, posing a major security concern, a UN report said in Chennai.

A study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on ‘Smuggling of migrants from Tamil Nadu to Europe and in particular to UK’ said Chennai has become the hub of “irregular migration” and these illegal immigrants, especially Sri Lankans of Tamil origin, were increasingly using the international airport in Chennai as a transit point.

The study, released by Chief Secretary K S Sripathi, revealed that some of the illegal migrants were residents of LTTE-dominated areas of Sri Lanka. “Under such circumstances, security issues acquire a different dimension for India as the transit country and the destination countries in Europe as well,” UNODC said.

The report strongly favoured a separate study on irregular migration of Sri Lankans of Tamil origin.

Considering the close ethnic relationship between Sri Lankans of Tamil origin and mainland Tamils, it would be appropriate to study irregular migration from Tamil Nadu alongside that from Sri Lanka, the report said. For the UNODC report, 169 cases of immigration-offence related records for the July 2006 to June 2007 period were examined.

All these cases were registered with the police station at the International airport in Chennai, which handles arrival and departure of about 2.8 million passengers a year, the study added.

About 23 per cent of the cases related to irregular migration of Sri Lankan nationals. Due to strict emigration checks for Sri Lankans of Tamil origin in Sri Lanka, many of them prefer to come to Chennai and try to migrate illegally to destination countries in Europe, it said.

The study, based on law enforcement authority records, discussions with officials and public representatives, also revealed that out of the total of 169 cases, about 40 per cent cases of irregular migration were from Tamil Nadu.

Apart from migrants from the state, those from Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and some north Indian states also use Chennai for travelling to other countries. In addition, during field visits, cases of irregular migration to the UK were noted from almost every village in Namakkal district and from certain pockets in Thanjavur district (both Tamil Nadu).

Among all destinations in Europe, UK was the most preferred destination for the migrants.

Some seized forged documents had revealed that they were of exceptionally high quality and that detection would only be possible by specially trained professionals.

Economic Times