Siva confesses to human trafficking

Arjun Raghunath
The New Indian Express
10 Aug 2010

THIRUVANATHAPURAM: The arrest of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) operative Sundararaja Sivakumar alias Siva, 50, has thrown light on the massive human trafficking of Sri Lankans, including LTTE supporters, to various foreign countries from the Tamil Nadu coast.
The startling revelations of Siva during the interrogation by the Kerala Police, Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officials had even led to strong suspicions that the regrouping of LTTE cadres are receiving the silent blessings of some political parties in Tamil Nadu.
Siva has confessed to the investigators that over the past one-and-a-half years around 1,500 Sri Lankan natives, including LTTE activists, were trafficked to various countries from the Tamil Nadu coast.
Around 35 boats had set sail from the Tamil Nadu coast, especially from Kadalur Kanyakumari Rameswaram belt, to locations such as Australia, Canada, Italy and France, highly placed sources told Express against the backdrop of interrogating Siva.
"Without the support of any political party it is quite impossible to carry out massive human trafficking from a State. Siva seems to be only a minor link in a larger network spread across the world," highly placed sources told Express.
However, the source, of funding for the regrouping activities still remain out of bounds for the investigating agencies. It is suspected that the funds are being pooled from LTTE supporters spread across various parts of the world. Each boat costs several lakhs of rupees and hence huge funds are required.
"Only a tip of the iceberg has been exposed so far and an exhaustive probe is required to expose the larger network involved in regrouping the LTTE cadres,'' an Intelligence official said.
Siva was held from Chennai the other day by a police team from Kollam as part of the investigation into the attempt to trafficking 37 Sri Lanka Tamils in May which was tipped off by the Intelligence Bureau.
Siva had also revealed that a boat which had set sail to Australia recently with LTTE supporters from the Kerala coast had lost its way due to technical fault of the GPS system and landed on Indonesian shores. The passengers on the boat are now in a UN refugee camp in Indonesia.
Siva who was earlier into gold business came to India for the first time in 1996. By early 2000, Siva entered travel business and worked from Colombo for several years.
From thereon, Siva was suspected to be making arrangements for human trafficking. Later he came down to India in 2007.