‘How I wish I was homeward bound’

On a sultry noon, two Sri Lankan women were seated in front of a police official at one of the Intelligence Sections at the Commissioner’s Office. These women from Neelankarai, both refugees, were meeting the official to know more about the cumbersome procedure involved in getting their papers cleared before returning to their homeland. 

They had already obtained the ‘No Objection Certificate’ (NOC) in June, but they did not approach the immigration department immediately due to personal reasons. After five months, they are clueless as to how to proceed, as they have been asked to produce another NOC. Twenty days ago, the visas for this family expired. This family also laments over a C-Form (where their landlords need to fill in their details), which is a one page document to be filled up before applying at the immigration office, which is a Central Govt mandate.

The Intelligence Section at the Commissioner’s office sees at least five refugees walking in with similar grievances in a month, but the cops say there is nothing much they can do to ease the process. 

Over 1,13,000 Sri Lankan refugees live in the State. Of them, 59,000 continue to live in 113 open camps while another 35,000 live in rented or their own homes in the city. Most, if not all of these people, want to return home. 

In 1986, Gnanaraja arrived in the city as a Sri Lankan refugee with his family, including his six-year-old son. Later, when it was time for his son to return, the family began feeling the heat of how complex the procedures were, to return to their home land. A resident of Maduravoyal, Gnanaraja says, ‘My son ran from pillar to post for three months for getting a passport. Even at the immigration office they ask a set of 16 questions and if we are unable to answer any of them, the applicant is rejected. They ask for documents like the details of the house owner which are so difficult to get. For two months, we kept asking our landlord for a photo copy of his identity proof and he sarcastically asked if we were planning to sell his house.” 

Another Sri Lankan refugee who came here ten years ago and lives in Madipakkam, says, ‘At times, the visa expires and the official procedures here take their own course. We all live in rented houses. Most of the time the house-owner declines to fill up such forms. He claims that the formalities are rigourous.” 

An Inspector with the Madipakkam police station admits that the NOC takes barely one hour to get done, if all the details are available in the form. “But it is rarely that case,” he said. The Intelligence official said, “The police inspectors do not know how to handle it, the applicants tell us that they are denied the clearance, even harassed and asked to pay money. The applicants need to show a letter from the house owner, along with an address proof, identity proof and the e-mail id of the house owner. It leaves the refugees in a lurch. Sometimes a separate form is required to be filled in by the house owner himself where he needs to give details including his Aadhaar number, at times the landlord is asked to come in person. And most of the landlords refuse to co-operate. 

In 2012 and in 2014, the city police commissioner’s letter to the local stations had made it clear that the applicants for NOC should not be made to wait for long. And, if they stayed in a locality without registering and if the local police come to know of their residence in his jurisdiction, he/she must take responsibility to get them registered.

Chief Functionary of Organisation for Eelam Refugees’ Rehabilitation (OfERR), SC Chandrahassan, says, “The procedures should not be handled by the local police. The refugees are being made to appear a number of times and sometimes they are asked to pay a bribe. We want this to be made into a single- window system at the rehabilitation department.”