The city police have launched a pre-tourism season enforcement drive to ensure that resorts, hotels and homestays registered their foreign guests with the local station house.
The police said that a small section of foreign travellers misused their visas to run commercial operations, chiefly homestays for foreign holiday-makers and Maldivian nationals visiting the city for treatment and educational purposes.
The managements of certain such facilities often did not report or were recurrently late in informing the police about the particulars of the foreigners they hosted.
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The Foreigner's Registration Act (FRA) required those hosting foreigners on their premises to inform the police about the details of their guests in the mandatory C-Form format.
The police said they viewed the lack of compliance of the Act as a security concern. They said some homestays, including a few operated by Maldivian nationals, did not even maintain proper guest registers. On Monday, the police checked several homestays where Maldivian nationals stayed in groups. They arrested a Maldivian national, on the charge of running a hostel for his country men without informing the police about the particulars of the foreigners he hosted. Circle Inspector, Pettah, K.B. Manoj Kumar identified the accused as Salim Haji.
He said the suspect was produced before the court on the charge of violating the FRA and was remanded in judicial custody.
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The CI said Mr. Salim was not prompt in filing the mandatory C-Forms.
Online facility
Last year, the State police had launched an online facility to enable hoteliers, resort owners, homestay managements and private individuals hosting foreigners to easily and promptly communicate the details of their guests to the State police.
To avail the online “C-Form” registration facility, hoteliers and homestay managements had to first register themselves as authorised hosts with the government by logging on to www.keralatourism.gov.in.
The portal would assign a user name and password to the authorised host, who would then be able to file C-Form online. It would also issue an online receipt once the registration was successfully executed, a senior official said.
The police said that an estimated 2,000 foreigners arrive in the State daily.
An estimated 4,000 Maldivians live in the city.
Security threat
Failure on the part of hoteliers to communicate the details of their foreign guests promptly, within 24 hours of their arrival, to the police was seen as vulnerability from the security point of view, he said.
Ideally, the police should be able to access the Tourism Department's database on foreign visitors to prevent the arrival and stay of “unwelcome” foreigners.