Mumbai: Four Sri Lankan men arrested for attempting to travel to UK with fake Indian passports
Four British nationals were reportedly aiding them.
Immigration officials at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai said that they prevented four Sri Lankans from illegally entering the UK last week, reported The Indian Express. They also caught four Britishers who were allegedly aiding them.
All eight of them were later arrested and produced in court, post which they have been remanded in police custody for two days. The four Sri Lankans were travelling with forged Indian passports as using Sri Lankan documents could become problematic to enter the UK. During interrogation with the police, one of the men confessed that his name was Arunasalam Suthakaran and his fellow travellers – Kannathsan Karththeepan and Gajan Chandrabalan had Indian passports with the, names Stuart Alan Quilliam and Dominic Oliver Bower.
“It is difficult for Sri Lankans to travel to the UK because of the refugee problem there. So, the agents obtained forged Indian passports which bore names of British nationals,” Virendra Mishra, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone VIII told the daily.
Initial investigation, police said, has revealed that the forged passports belong to people living in Pattukotai, Alangudi and Atthipattu in Tamil Nadu.