REFUGEE

COLOMBO: Top Sri Lankan Tamil human smuggler, Kukaendrarajah Sanjeev alias Alex, who has emerged as the spokesman of the 255 illegal Tamil immigrants in Banten province in Indonesia, has his office in India.
The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry said on Friday, that it believed that Alex was, in fact, Kulaendrarajah Sanjeev, who had been involved in human smuggling for a long time. The Sri Lankan embassy in Jakarta had also discovered that Alex had been conducting his human smuggling operations from an office in India, a foreign office press release said.
K Sanjeev (27), once belonged to ‘Kannan Gang’ involved in street fights in Toronto in Canada, and was deported from Canada in 2003, after being arrested for trouble-making. His brother, who is now is Canada, is also involved in human smuggling, and the Canadian Mounted Police are after him, the Ministry said.
OZ ENVOY TO COLOMBO: Meanwhile, in an effort to curb illicit immigration from Sri Lanka to Australia, Canberra would send its special envoy for illicit immigration issues, John Mc- Carthy, to Colombo to coordinate efforts to stem the flow from the island nation to Australia.
DOGS ALSO HELPED DEFEAT LTTE: The dog squad of the Sri Lankan army had played a significant role in rooting out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Eelam War IV that ended in May this year, army veterinarian, Capt Dr Sudheera Thalagala, said on Thursday.
Speaking at a function to launch a postage stamp on humane ways of fighting rabies, Capt Thagala said that the 75 dogs of the squad had helped detect mines and other explosives planted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to impede the advance of the Sri Lankan forces.
They had warned soldiers of approaching terrorists.
The army dog squad had in fact saved the lives of thousands of soldiers.
During the war in the North, Tamil villages often had only stray dogs living in them when the Sri Lankan troops came.
These stray dogs kept the isolated and lonely Sri Lankan trooper company and gave him some moments of joy, the army veterinarian said.