Sri Lanka: Journalist arrests for his asylum plot

 On the advice of my uncle in Poland, I tried to go to Poland via Romania - ex-journo spilled the beans

by Our Defence Correspondent 

A man named Balasubramaniam Senduran, a resident in Colombo has visited a printing house in Kiribathgoda, Colombo suburb, on June 2020, requested a series of articles to be printed in a newspaper format. He told the owner of the printing house that he will come to collect the printed paper in a few days. He said that he worked as a journalist and told the owner that he was reporting on current affairs.  

 

But he was arrested on suspicion by the CID in July 2020 when he arrived to pick up the printed fake newspapers. It has been revealed that he had paid around Rs. 24,000 to the printing press for printing these fake newspaper pages.

 

One of the fake news reports states,

“ B. Sendhuran, a journalist of the Thinakkural newspaper and editor of a well - known Tamil newspaper in Canada, was assaulted at around 7 am yesterday. The journalist who was seriously injured in the incident has been hospitalized with head injuries. The Sri Lanka Press Association has condemned the incident."

 

However, during investigations, the man revealed that he had worked for the Thinakkural and Virakesari newspapers for some time. But no one has interfered with his duty. However, the salary he received from the company where he worked was not enough. Therefore he tried to go abroad by preparing fake documents and fake newspaper reports. He was found in possession of a forged identity card of a journalist and seven forged official stamps.

 

According to reliable sources, the forged documents were prepared on the instructions of his uncle who lives in Poland. He believed that these forgeries could easily deceive the foreign embassies in Colombo and other responsible parties. He planned to go first to Romania and then to Poland and seek asylum.

 

A significant number of similar incidents have reported in the past. But due to lack of reliable evidence, those cases were kept under the carpet. As a result, many have fled the country and sought refuge, claiming that they had been subjected to state repression. 

 

International organizations have often accepted the views of these individuals and their brokers to blame the Sri Lankan security forces and other authorities. But most international organizations do not independently investigate the veracity of those allegations. Consequently, innocent parties came under severe criticisms merely based on assumptions.