Nationality of over 200 illegal Muslim immigrants being verified

BANGKOK, March 14 (TNA) - Thai immigration police are verifying the nationality of a large group of over 200 illegal immigrants who were arrested in a rubber plantation in Songkhla Province in the Thai South on Wednesday night. The 220 aliens, who claimed to be Turk and were expected to use the Thai soil as their transit point to another country but they do not have any document to verify their claim to be Turk, were rounded up in the plantation, where Songkhla's Rattaphum and Hat Yai Districts adjoin, comprising 78 men, 60 women and 82 children. Hat Yai's immigration police chief Police Major General Thatchai Peetaneelabut told journalists on Friday that he has asked staffs of the UN Refugee Agency, the Turk Embassy to Thailand and other concerned organizations to help verify the aliens’ nationality, together with immigration police. Police Major General Thatchai said that the rescued aliens, all weary and some ill, could not speak English, but they had latest models of mobile phones and their dresses did not resemble Rohingya Muslims. According to the local immigration police chief, authorities initially assumed that human traffickers left the aliens in the rubber plantation to wait for their trip to another country. Meanwhile, Professor Anek Laothamatas, Dean of the College of Government and Public Governance of Rangsit University, warned in a discussion on crime and the ASEAN community (AC), held at the university, that transnational criminals appear to be gathering in Thailand and their illicit networking activities cover human trafficking, narcotics and money laundering in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Europe and America. Professor Anek urged Thai authorities to seek concrete cooperation with their counterparts in other ASEAN member countries to suppress the criminals.(TNA)