MUMBAI: The Mumbai police from Colaba on Wednesday arrested the three Tamil Nadu residents who sailed for 10 days from Kuwait to Mumbai in a fishing boat via the Saudi Arabia-Dubai-Pakistan route before entering India without any travel document like passport or licence and landed on shore South Mumbai on Tuesday. 

The police arrested them and they were produced in court which remanded the three named, Infant Vijay Vinod Anthony (29), Sahaya Anthony Anish (29) and Nidiso Ditto (31), to police custody till Feb 10 for further investigation. The three have been booked under section 3 (a) with penal section 6 (a) of the Passport (Entry into India) Rules for not following the due procedures required for entering India.

The Mumbai police will do a detailed investigation and examine the boat's GPS to verify the route taken by the trio to find out if they had committed any crime in Kuwait or while crossing the international borders or if they were involved in any other suspicious activity like ferrying any illegal or banned substances or anyone on board.

The matter assumes seriousness considering that in November 2008, 10 Pakistani terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Taiba outfit had also landed on Mumbai shores in a boat and launched a terror strike in Mumbai in November 2008 that claimed the lives of 166 individuals and left more than 300 people injured.

The three have said that they were fishermen from Tamil Nadu and had gone to Kuwait two years back for work, however, they were allegedly ill-treated by their agent who took them to Kuwait, their passports were confiscated by their employers and they were not paid any wages. They tried to get help from local authorities and even approached the Indian embassy without much help following which they planned their escape from there. 

They told police that they first filled the boats with the required quantity of diesel, food, and water and told their employer that they were going on a fishing trip they steered the boat from Kuwait and en route to the marine borders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Dubai, Oman and Pakistan before entering Indian shores and landed at Sassoon dock where the police caught them after finding them suspicious. The boat is now docked at the Gateway of India and the police are now conducting further investigation in which they will also verify their claims of being from Tamil Nadu.