Colombo:

Sri Lankan authorities have arrested 21 Indian nationals for illegally working an internet advertising centre within the island nation, violating the relaxed vacationer visa norms, a media report stated on Wednesday.

The 21 Indian males within the age group of 24 to 25, who have been in Sri Lanka on vacationer visas, have been taken into custody on Tuesday by the Division of Immigration and Emigration, the Each day Mirror newspaper reported.

After a preliminary inquiry, the division raided a rented home in Negombo metropolis, the place these arrested have been discovered working an internet advertising centre. The home had been transformed into an workplace area the place computer systems and different units had been put in, the report stated.

Underneath Sri Lanka’s regulation, those that go to the island nation on vacationer visas are prohibited from partaking in any paid or unpaid work.

The Indian nationals had used the free-of-charge visa situation that Sri Lanka has granted to a set of nations until March 31 as a part of an ongoing pilot mission to advertise tourism within the cash-strapped nation.

That they had arrived in Sri Lanka in February and March on vacationer visas, a senior immigration official instructed the newspaper.

The arrested Indian nationals have been transferred to the division’s detention centre in Welisara on the orders of related authorities, the report stated.

(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)