Foreigner held on false charges returns home

Chennai: Zaw Lin of Myanmar left for home via Bangkok on Saturday with bitter memories. The 36-year-old sailor was arrested by the Chennai airport police late last year and spent nearly two months in Puzhal prison and a few months in a room in Guindy before the Madras high court quashed the case against him and ordered his release last week.
On October 9, 2011, Lin, a sailor with merchant vessel Gati Pride, was leaving for home when he was arrested at the airport. He was charged with tampering a photo in his Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC), the passport of seamen, and remanded in prison.
Talking to TOI before leaving, Lin said he wanted to forget those dark days. "I pleaded with the airport police to check my passport and all travel documents which had the same photograph but they accused me of tampering with the photo in my CDC. They harassed me," said Lin, who neither knew English nor Hindi and couldn't explain his case.
16/09/12 Arun Janardhanan/Times of India

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Categories: airports Sep 2012, Foreign Sep 2012