15 Sri Lankans nabbed for traveling without passports

JAKARTA (JP): Fifteen Sri Lankans have been arrested at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport for traveling without the correct documents, police said Saturday.

City Police spokesman Lt. Col. E. Aritonang said that the 15 were detained by immigration staff at the airport as they queued at passport control on Thursday night.

They have been charged with violating immigration regulations by attempting to travel without passports and are being detained at the City Police Headquarters, he said.

"They claimed that their passports were kept by the head of their group, who did not show up at the airport," he said.

The 15 possessed other documents which could not be used for traveling abroad, Aritonang said without elaborating.

"These people were planning to go to Australia to work. They said that their transportation had been arranged by certain people. We are still trying to locate the people who, according to them, are responsible for the documents" said the spokesman.

Police declined to say if the men had been arrested as they attempted to enter the country, or as they attempted to leave.

The detainees were named as Sivabalasingam Balaruban, Chellaiya Runa Balasingam, Peter Simson, Eladchumanan Kiri Tharagopalan, Taurugesu Coganathan, Anthonipillai Christy Alphones, Savarimurthy Sakayanathan, Shanmugan Govindarajan, Gunaratnam Ravichandran, Arulappy Francis, Theivendram Subash, Nargamuthu Sivakumar, Murugiah Pirasutha, Vickreswaran Vijayan and Kasilingan Subramania.

The members of the group were students, businessmen, fishermen and farmers, Aritonang said. All of them claimed to be from the Tamil ethnic group.

A police officer said that the men had informed interrogators that they were refugees and had left Colombo to seek asylum in Australia.

"They said that they wanted to get work in Australia and that their transportation has been financed by a man from a western European country", said the officer, who requested anonymity.

The 15 left Colombo for Singapore on the night of Feb. 24 and arrived in Jakarta on Feb. 26, he said.

They were supposed to obtain their passports in Singapore but they did not know who the man responsible for providing correct travel documents was, said the officer.

"These people asked not to be deported to Colombo because they were afraid that their lives will be in danger there. They asked us to contact the United Nations' representative office here on their behalf", he said.

Police investigating the alibis provided by the 15 and are continuing to search for the man believed to be responsible for their passports. (cst)