The 84 people, majority of who were Sri Lankan refugees from various camps in Tamil Nadu, rescued on September 8 by the Mangalore police from being smuggled to Australia would have died mid-way, said a senior police officer. “None of them would have made it to their destination, considering the fact that the sea is rough and the vessel in which they were being transported was a dhow – more like a fishing trawler – with no navigation devices and sufficient fuel or food stock. One GPS and 6,000 litres of diesel would not have helped them cover the distance between Thannirbhavi and Christmas Island. It would have taken minimum 25 days to cover the distance. They would have died mid-way,” said a senior police officer.
But for a beat constable from the coastal security police, who smelt trouble after he saw luggage being loaded on the dhow at Thannirbhavi at a time when nobody dares to enter the sea and alerted the police, the seafarers would have perished in the sea, he said. Unfortunately, India, which is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, has not so far framed laws on anti-human trafficking or anti-human smuggling. As a result, for a heinous crime like this, the Mangalore police could only slap cases under Sections 420 (cheating) and 120B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 14 of the Foreigners (Amended) Act, 2004 against the 13 agents, who reportedly confessed that they were smuggling the Sri Lankan refugees to Australia for “better jobs”.
According to the United Nations, smuggling of migrants is a “crime involving the procurement for financial or other material benefit of illegal entry of a person into a State of which that person is not a national or resident… It undermines the integrity of countries and communities, and costs thousands of people their lives every year.”