Kollam police bust human trafficking racket, nab 151 Sri Lankan Tamils bound for Australia

[email protected] (The Hindu)
June 5, 2012

human_traffing


Kollam, June 5: The Kollam police claimed to have busted a human trafficking racket on Sunday night with the arrest of two groups of Sri Lankan Tamils, one from a fishing boat off the coast and the other from Mukkad area of Kavanad in the city. Those taken into custody comprise 107 men, 19 women and 25 children.


They told the police that Australia was their destination and they had paid Rs. 50,000 each for being smuggled into that country. But the police were clueless on the identity of the people behind the racket.


“At the same time there are indications that Tamil Tigers with local contacts could be involved.”


Kollam Police Commissioner Debesh Kumar Behera told The Hindu that it would be verified whether they had sneaked out of refugee camps in Tamil Nadu or arrived here directly from Sri Lanka.


It was also being examined whether those taken into custody were in possession of travel documents.


Preliminary investigations revealed that some of those taken into custody had arrived directly from Sri Lanka but the majority had sneaked out of refugee camps in the hope of reaching Australia.


The police arrested boat owner Alex and middleman Dasan, both of Kollam.


The boat was a crude vessel marked to be condemned. It displayed two names, “Saint Antony” and “Kottarathil.” From the boat 136 were taken into custody and the rest from Kavanad.


The arrested alleged that they were victims of human rights violations both in Sri Lanka and even at the refugee camps in India and that the torture had compelled them to take the risk of embarking on a dangerous voyage in a crude boat in the hope of reaching Australia. They were told that it would take 18 days.


The women and children were found to have been accommodated inside the store of the boat.


But the police did not find sufficient food or water.


Convincing version

Mr. Behera said the version of the Tamils seemed convincing as many of their relatives had reached Australia through the same mode.


It was a group of youths relaxing on the banks of the Ashtamudi Lake at Mukkad which saw some Tamils desperately rushing to a boat jetty and alerted the police.


The police soon arrived and on interrogating the group, learnt that a boatload of Sri Lankan Tamils being trafficked to Australia was not far from the Kollam coast.


The boat was scheduled to arrive at Mukkad and pick up this group.


When the operators on the boat learnt that the police were on to them, they skipped the Mukkad schedule and began sailing away. However, a posse from the Neendakara Coastal Police station, gave chase in the interceptor boat Darshana, and stopped the vessel from escaping.


Crew escape

When the police entered the boat there was no crew. It was suspected that they could have jumped into the sea and escaped. The team from the Coastal Police Station steered the fishing boat to the Shakthikulangara Harbour.


Boat owner and middleman, both of Kollam, arrested


The boat was a crude vessel marked to be condemned



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News Network
June 5,2020

Jun 5: A young woman was forced to drink liquor allegedly by her husband after which he along with four friends assaulted, burnt her with cigarette butts and raped her in front of her five year-old son, police said on Friday.

All the five, who were taken into custody earlier, have been arrested. The shocking incident occurred in the state capital last night.

The incident came to light after the 25-year-old woman, approached police and complained against her husband and his four friends.

A case has been registered against the five accused for kidnapping, assaulting and gangrape.

Since the incident took place in front of the child, a case under Protection of children from sexual offices Act has also been charged against the accused.

Meanwhile, State health and family welfare minister K K Shailaja asked the state police chief to take stringentction against the culprits as "such cruelty happened in front of her child."

The Kerala State Women's Commission on its own registered a case and sought report from the Thiruvananthapuram Rural SP.

She managed to escape from there and pleaded for help from a young man, who saw in heran inebriatedstate, and took her to her house and informed police.

The man later told some television channels that she was crying, had injuries on her face and pleaded for help.

Police have recorded the statement of the woman, who was admitted to a government hospital here and later discharged.

She had also stated that the men had tortured her using cigarette butts.

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News Network
May 11,2020

May 11: Two youths allegedly gang-raped a teen and then hacked to death her 11-year old brother, who had seen their act, in a bid to hide their crime, at a village in Uttar Pradesh's Etah district, about 300 kilometres from here.

Police sources said that two youths, resident of the same village, barged into the house of the teen, when she was alone, and allegedly gang-raped her.

The victim's minor brother suddenly came into the house and protested after he witnessed his sister being sexually assaulted, sources said. The youths allegedly strangled the minor with a towel.

The alleged culprits, who hailed from influential families, 'forced' the victim's parents to bury their son and warned them against approaching the cops.

The parents, however, gathered courage and met senior police officials in Etah on Sunday after a case was registered in this regard. Police said that the body of the minor would be exhumed and a postmortem examination would be conducted.

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News Network
January 20,2020

Ahmedabad, Jan 20: Cops in Gandhinagar fell in a catch-22 situation when a state government employee approached them with a complaint that the 26-year-old woman class teacher of his 14-year-old son had gone missing taking his son in tow. The man, who works at Udyog Bhavan in Gandhinagar said the woman had seduced his teenage son, who studies in class VIII and taken him away with her. The boy had gone missing from 4pm on Friday, and the classteacher was also missing.

A police official said the woman teacher had been too intimate with the allegedly missing boy for around a year, and the school authorities had recently rebuked them. “As their relationship was unaccepted, they left their homes on Friday,” he said. It was rare to find a case of a woman teacher eloping with her teenage student, the official added.

An FIR for elopement under Section 363 IPC has been registered with Kalol city police in Gandhinagar district. The complaint stated the teacher is a resident of Darbari chawl in Kalol town.

“When I reached home at around 7pm, I found my son missing. My wife told me he had left home at around 4pm. We searched for him in the neighbourhood and among relatives, but couldn’t trace him,” claims the teenage boy’s father in the FIR. “I went to the teacher’s house but they were not there,” the man stated.

Inspector K K Desai of Kalol city police said the missing duo could not be traced as they were not carrying cellphones.

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