A Sri Lankan Tamil couple with their three teenage daughters landed clandestinely at Arichalmunai, off Dhanushkodi in the early hours of Friday.
On landing they pleaded that there was no means of livelihood for them in the northern province of Sri Lanka and they could not educate their daughters.
Police said the five-member family arrived from Pesalai, a fishing hamlet in the north west of Mannar by engaging a boat for 25,000 Sri Lankan rupees. After dropping them near Arichalmunai, the boatmen returned to Mannar.
They were walking down from Arichalmunai when the Dhanushkodi police arrested them under sections 3(a), read with 6(a) of the Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950 and section 14 of the Foreigners Act. They were produced before the local Magistrate court and taken to Chennai to be lodged in Puzhal cental prison, police said.
Police identified them as C Sathyaseelan (56), his wife S Parameswari (45) and daughters Mary (19), Anjalidevi (16) and Viduthalai Selvi (14). Sathyaseelan had arrived here as refugee in September 1996 and stayed in the Athiyendal camp in Tiruvannamalai before returning to Sri Lanka. Leaving behind his son, Viduthalai Selvan and Kanchana, both married, in the camp, he returned to Sri Lanka in May 2010 .
