India and Australia today held a high-level meeting to discuss issues related to tackling human trafficking and curbing the menace of narcotic drugs.
The Aussie team, led by Australian Border Force Commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg along with Commander of Operation Sovereign Borders Major General Andrew Bottrell met senior officers of the External Affairs Ministry, Coast Guard and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) at the end of their three-day India tour.
Briefing journalists, Bottrell said the aim of their visit was take forward their existing cooperation with Indian authorities on issues related to human trafficking, border security and countering the drugs menace.
During the meeting, the Australian side also urged Indian authorities to ensure that potential asylum seekers from here are not allowed to travel to their country in the wake of a one time deal it recently struck with the US to resettle an unspecified number of refugees languishing in Pacific island.
Bottrell said they also wanted to inform the Indian side that they have "increased their law enforcement and intelligence cooperation with the agencies (including Indian) and have put more ships and aircraft to make sure that even if people smugglers (human traffickers) convince people to get onto the boat we will detect them and we will return them."
The Obama administration had agreed to resettle refugees among almost 1,300 asylum seekers held at Australia's expense on the island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
Quaedvlieg, while talking to journalists, said last weekend Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had announced a resettlement deal "relating to a number of asylum seekers and refugees who have been housed in the Pacific as part of a regional processing arrangement and operations on their borders."
"Our concern is that we are keen to ensure that it is a one off arrangement. Well, there are many asylum seekers in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and we certainly know that there are any number of asylum seekers in Tamil Nadu.
"Our message to those people is that do not think that this is a softening of Australian policy...It is merely a function of trying to resettle the residue people who are trying to seek asylum in Australia.
"If there are any attempts by asylum seekers and people smugglers (human traffickers) to put illegal ventures into waters to Australia they will be detected, intercepted and returned to their point of embarkation," he said.
When asked how big a threat did Australia foresee from asylum seekers and refugees from India, the border force chief said there are "large asylum seeker camps in Tamil Nadu... (which have) ten of thousands potential asylum seekers."
Quaedvlieg said during their meeting with the authorities here they found that India recognises "threat" to Australia from this problem.
The two officials, however, said the last time they intercepted Indian origin asylum seekers was in 2014 when 157 people were detected onboard a boat. They could not make it to Australia and were sent back.
The Australian officers also said they shared their concern with Indian anti-narcotics sleuths with regard to the threat of precursor chemicals that are increasingly being used to prepare drug concoctions world over. These chemicals are known to be used in the illegal manufacture of narcotic drugs and psychoactive substances.
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