Turkish national lands on Rameswaram coast, arrested

A Turkish national who landed on the Rameswaram coast on an illegal ferry from Sri Lanka was arrested by Ramanathapuram district police on Saturday night. Mahir Devrin, 43, claimed that he had reached India while on a journey across countries since fleeing Turkey where he was hounded for being a dissenter. He was arrested under the Indian Passport Act and Foreigners Act and produced before a judicial magistrate at Tiruvadanai on Sunday. The process of lodging him in Puzhal central prison, Chennai was under way.
During investigations, Devrin claimed to have fled his country due to a threat to his life. He managed to reach Rameswaram with the help of a Sri Lankan fisherman in Jaffna on a fibre boat after paying him Rs 25,000. Although the police believe that he did not come to India with any nefarious intentions, the incident is a wakeup call for security agencies given the ease with which he reached the shore evading them. Police said that a team from Jetty station arrested Mahir Devrin as soon as he reached Serankottai coast near Rameswaram jetty. Various items including a tablet, debit card, passport, mobile phone and bank passbook wer eseized from him.

Deputy superintendent of police, Rameswaram, M Magesh, said, “The accused had a valid passport with him. However, he did not have any visa to visit India. He told us that he wanted to visit India under a tourist visa. Someone in Sri Lanka told him that it would take time. He came in touch with fishermen and one of them ferried him,” he said. He also told the police that he was with an organisation which worked against the Turkish government. Since there was a threat to his life, he fled his country in 1996. Since then, he has been to many countries, said the DSP. Police sources said that he had visited Thailand and China. While staying in Siberia, he got married in 2014 but divorced the woman two years later. Apart from police, various intelligence agencies also conducted inquiries on the incident.

Meanwhile, the incident has once again brought into focus the porous nature of our maritime boundary. Commodore R S Vasan, former regional commander of Indian Coast Guard, Eastern Command, said that such illegal ferrying should serve as a wakeup call for security agencies. Incidents like this should not be treated as isolated. Indian Navy and Coast Guard which came under the central government as well as coastal security guard and marine police which were under the state government along with intelligence agencies like Q branch should have better coordination to prevent such illegal entry. “The challenge is the number of fishermen from India venturing into Sri Lankan water for fishing. It is very difficult to manage them in the absence of coordination among the agencies,” he told TOI.