India accepts Australia's request to probe 157 boat refugees

India gave Australia a bit of a breather by agreeing to investigate whether some of the 157 boat refugees confined to their boat on Christmas Island were Sri Lankan Tamil refugees from a camp in Puducherry.

Australia has asked the Indian government to provide consular services to the refugees to see if India can take them back. The refugees are held as prisoners in a boat and only let out during meal time.

Scott Morrison, Australia's embattled immigration minister, told Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and home minister Rajnath Singh that according to Australian investigations, the controversial boat with 157 asylum seekers set out from India.

The government had earlier approached Sri Lanka, but Colombo blew them away.

The case of the 157 Tamil refugees has created a major storm in Australia. The Australian government does not want them in their country. It has argued that since the Tamils were intercepted outside Australian territorial waters, Canberra had the right to return them to the country they came from.

According to international law, Australia is obliged not to send back refugees to the country they left.

Faced with a growing number of refugees from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and even Indonesia who float their way to Australia, the Australian navy now regularly scouts for boat people outside Australia territorial waters.

The present case involves Lankan Tamils who, Australia says, came from south India in June.

Morrison said, "The report is that the vessel did come from India, we've got a very good understanding of where this vessel has come from and we've been having some dialogue with the Indian government to work through these issues."

Indian government sources said it was only very recently that Australia had reached out to India on this issue. (The Times of India)