A 75-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil was arrested by the country’s immigration authorities when he returned to Jaffna from a refugee camp in India, Island nation’s main Tamil party claimed on Friday.The man was returning from a refugee camp in India after obtaining all necessary clearance from all relevant agencies and was certified as a refugee by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, MA Sumanthiran, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) member, said in a statement.
He was detained by immigration officials at Palaly airport (in Jaffna). He was produced before the Mallakam magistrates court in the Northern Province by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and remanded till June 5, he added.
Questioning the move, Sumanthiran asked, “Is this a move by the government to frighten 10K others who have registered to return?”
There were over 58,000 Sri Lankan refugees living in over 100 camps in India in 2022, officials said.
They started arriving in Tamil Nadu in the 1980s, escaping the armed conflict in the north and east of Sri Lanka.
The conflict ended in 2009, and the refugees started to return in 2015. The UNHCR has facilitated voluntary repatriation.