The Union Home Ministry has asked emigration authorities in south India, including Kerala, to be on the lookout for Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) operatives fleeing the fighting in Sri Lanka.

Official sources said the updated lookout notice for LTTE operatives had the details of more than 3,000 persons, including in some cases, their photographs.

They said it was possible that wanted LTTE men could crossover to India from Sri Lanka in fishing boats posing as refugees or fishermen, procure fake Indian passports and travel to the U.K, Europe, Singapore, Malaysia or Canada pretending as Indian citizens.

Emigration authorities said that a Sharjah-based racket, having middlemen in Tamil Nadu (mainly in Thirunelveli and Rameswaram) and Kerala, was duplicating Indian passports for use by illegal emigrants.

Officials said these racketeers were duplicating even the latest "machine readable" Indian passports. They used an almost undetectable method to substitute the digitally imposed photographs on the passports without tampering the hidden security features on the thin film covering them.
Racket unearthed

The scale of the racket came to light this year with emigration officials here detaining 41 passengers (till October 21) on the charge of possessing fake Indian passports.

The identity theft on 27 such passports was carried out by deftly substituting the photograph of the original holder with that of the impersonator. In 10 passports, crucial pages of the documents, including the VISA stamped leafs, were forged. Three of the suspects were carrying Indian passports forged in their entirety.

Those arrested were Indians employed in the Gulf whose passports had been confiscated by their employers for one reason or the other.

They said they had bought the fake passports for Rs.25,000 and upwards for escaping from poor working conditions.
Fake passports

The fake passports used for identity theft were mostly of persons who had travelled to the Gulf on visit visas and then became illegal immigrants there after their visa period expired.

Law enforcers said the LTTE could be using the services of such Indian passport duplicators to help Sri Lankan Tamils fleeing the conflict zone emigrate to other countries.
Fund raisers

It, in return, is known to demand from emigrants a sizeable chunk of their annual earnings to be paid to the organisation's fund raisers in foreign countries.

They said the LTTE used its sympathisers in India to procure fuel, medicines, provisions, welding equipment, vehicle spares, tools, metal balls and chemicals (that could be used for making bombs).

The officials said Kochi, Vizhinjam in Kerala and Kollencode in Tamil Nadu were the newly emerging procurement points for the LTTE in the south.

The provisions are shipped in fishing boats to militant-controlled areas in Sri Lanka. The LTTE allegedly uses the same route for smuggling heroin (sourced from across India's border and opium illegally diverted from certain licensed farms in the country) for funding its military campaign.
Refugee camps

The police are monitoring the activities in three Sri Lankan refugee camps in Kerala (at Gavi in Pathanamthitta, Kozhivila on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border and one in Wayanad) in view of the increased fighting in Sri Lanka.

Courtesy: The Hindu