CHENNAI: More than 60 inmates of Chengalpattu Sri Lankan refugee
camp in Kancheepuram district on Wednesday went on an indefinite
hunger strike demanding their immediate release.
Most of the inmates, in 20s and 30s, have been languishing in
the camp for more than three years. They have been picked by the
Q branch for trying to smuggle consignments to LTTE and some on
the basis of suspicion.
This is the 20th time the inmates are on a hunger strike.
�This time we are going on an indefinite fast,� the inmates
said, handing out a signed copy of the list of detainees in the
camp.
�We will only talk to political representatives not government
officials. We held talks with government officials in the past
but it was of no avail as our plight has worsened. We will hold
talks only with the chief minister, ministers or politicians in
the chief minister�s family including DMK MP Kanimozhi,� they
said.
�The war has ended in Sri Lanka but our struggle is unending.
In Sri Lanka, after the war may be there is some hope for Eelam
Tamils, but in India there is no hope for the refugees and the
Chengalpattu camp is an example,� says Satish.
�In most of the cases, police didn�t file any chargesheet. They
even don�t attempt to take the cases to their logical
conclusion,� Satish told Express.
�Since we are going to be confined to the camp, there is no
pressure on the police to take the case to conclusion. For minor
crimes, many of us are spending more than five years in the
camp,� inmates allege.
�There are some whose cases have ended and are denied permission
to join their relatives in the open camp. They are not even
allowed to go abroad,� 21-year-old Vishwa says.
�We should be sent to the open camp and we want to stay with our
families,� demand most of the Sri Lankans who fled to India in
the 90s. �Mahinda Rajapakse set up a camp in Lanka where Tamils
are tortured or detained illegally. Similar thing is happening
in Chengalpattu camp,� he said..
�Even our families and children are struggling in the open camp
but there is no sympathy from the officials,� the inmates say.
�If we are kept in the camp for too long, we will go insane,�
the inmates said.
�Most of the inmates are sick. There is also a mentally ill
patient. The authorities aren�t providing him with any
healthcare,� rues an inmate, who doesn�t want to be named.
As most of them squat outside demanding their immediate release,
many confide they have lost hope and faith of ever meeting their
families, who are ekeing out a living working as labourers in
open refugee camps.
More than 85 people are detained in the camp which was set up in
1993. As on September 2008, there are 72,889 refugees, belonging
to 19,296 families, in 117 camps spread throughout the State.
Another Guantanamo Bay in the making
It looked like another Guantanamo Bay as inmates, some mentally
ill, some disabled with one hand and one leg, are losing hope
disillusioned by their long incarceration in Chengalpattu
refugee camp.
Nearly 86 of them are locked in a small campus which has 32
cells without basic amenities.
�We live in the 25 cells. Other seven cells are used for other
things, including cooking food.� Some of the unfortunate souls
who find themselves caught in a trap, from which there seems to
be no escape, are willing to share their bitter experiences.
Among those is soft-spoken Sivakaran who shows the photograph of
his family and then shares his trauma.
Sivakaran fled war-ravaged Sri Lanka to eke out a living to
support his family in January 2007. His family was based in
Jaffna.
�I didn�t have anything to support them so I escaped to India to
find a decent job,� he says.
But his miseries did not end in India. He was picked up by the
police on suspicion and was sent to the refugee camp.
His family which was dependent on the sole breadwinner then
shifted to Mulaitivu during the war. It was on March 26 he lost
contact with his family.
Then came the tragic news.
His wife Shymala (32), children � Swarnan, 12, Tulasi, 10,
Puvithajini, 5 � all perished in a Sri Lankan air raid.
�I am not able to accept their death. I can�t share my grief.
Life has been hell for me. I am suffering from TB. It is more
than two-and-a-half years I am arrested but the case is being
postponed. If there is no solution to this, I will end my life
in jail,� he says.
Sivakaran is not the lone one to undergo the tragedy, many have
lost their near and dear ones. And they have themselves to
console as their link to the outside world is cut off.
Most of the inmates have been shifted from Puzhal, Madurai,
Tirichy, Palayamkotai and other parts of Tamil Nadu to the camp.
�Now the war has ended, why are we detained for so long,� says
Vishwa (name changed), who nearly lost the hope of ever seeing
his mother and his two brothers who are spending their days in
abject penury in an open camp in Tamil Nadu.
�I went to visit the temple in Rameswaram when I was picked up
by the cops. I am the eldest in the family. I don�t know how the
family is making their ends meet,� says the 21-year-old, who has
spent nearly three years in the jail.
