Melbourne:
Australia was working with India for the return of Tamil migrants among 157 asylum seekers currently being held at a detention centre in the country, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has said.
The group of Tamil asylum-seekers, including at least 37 children, are held in the Curtin Detention Centre after being on sea for several days.
The group was said to be from Pundicherry.
"People who are Tamils in India are not subject to persecution as a result of their Tamil ethnicity, and that is, I think, widely understood," said Morrison.
"People have left India and the suggestion was that people were being persecuted in India, and my simple statement was is that's obviously a non-sense," Morrison told ABC in an interview yesterday. He was responding to a criticism by a Green Senator on the return of the detained group to India.
"And that's why I have been working with the Indian Government to come to an arrangement where many of them who have been resident in India for a very long time could be considered for return," he said.
"Now, they may well have wished to return to India rather than the other options that are on the table here, which is obviously offshore processing," the minister said.
Morrison said negotiations were underway with Indian officials to deal with the issue and the first step was to allow the consular officials to meet the group.
"Now, if they choose not to do that, then that's a matter for them, and it could be possible that all of them may choose not to speak to Indian consular officials, and in so doing, they will pass up an opportunity to—potentially to be reunited with their families in India."
Morrison said three options were being currently worked out with India.
"One was that they could be taken to India where that process which I have talked about, their identity and so on, could be assessed," he said adding that the option was not accepted by India.
"It could also be done on the ship and that was logistically difficult to get Australian Indian consular officials to that ship, and so in those circumstances, we chose to do it this way," he said.
But if no-one chooses to talk to Indian consular officials, then the government's policy is very clear and they will go to offshore processing, said Morrison.
"They will never, ever be resettled in Australia and that will be the outcome and nor will they ever be able to probably ever go back to India again."
Morrison said there was no discussion with the Sri Lankan government about taking back the people on the boat.
"I will tell you why - that voyage did not come from Sri Lanka. It came from India," he said. "People were living in India or had transited through India."
