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Indian immigrants face trial in Russia

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW OCT. 11. Trial proceedings have been initiated against a group of Indians in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-the-Don. They have been accused of attempting to sneak into Ukraine on the way to Western Europe.

The group of 30 Indian nationals were detained in April after they lost their way trying to illegally cross Russia's border with Ukraine, media reports said. The Indians had arrived in Moscow by air last year on valid visas, which, however, had been issued on forged invitations from various Russian organisations. From Moscow they were driven in a truck to the Rostov region, from where they were to walk across the border to the neighbouring Lugansk region in Ukraine before heading for Slovakia in Eastern Europe.

However, they lost their way in the night in what they thought were "jungles" on the Russian-Ukrainian border and were rounded up by the border guards.

This is the largest number of illegal migrants ever detained on the Russian-Ukrainian border. The Indians said they had paid $2,000 each to reach Moscow from Delhi and another $500 for going to Ukraine.

A Russian security official said they had come across a well-established channel of illegal immigration from South-East Asia to Western Europe, but admitted that organisers of the criminal trafficking were yet to be detained.

"According to some estimates, 19,000 to 20,000 illegal migrants from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and other countries cross the border in the Rostov region alone every year," the spokesman for the Rostov branch of the Federal Security Service, Alexander Turinsky, told the daily, Vremya Novostei, adding that "illegal immigration is one of the top five most profitable criminal businesses today."

The detained Indians face a maximum punishment of five years in prison, but most likely will be fined and deported to India at Russia's expense. The former head of the Federal Migration Agency, Andrei Chernenko, said Russia had deported over 32,000 illegal migrants in 2001-2002.

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