Tamil asylum-seekers crowd the deck of the MV Sun Sea off the coast of British Columbia in August.MCpl Angela Abbey/DND
The thieves broke into the small office building in an industrial park, turned off the fuse box and headed for the second floor.
They broke down the wooden door of the head office of the Canadian Tamil Congress and started examining computers, leaving them strewn on the floor. Ultimately, they took just one, a desktop computer sitting on a receptionist's desk, and slipped away.
A day after the mysterious break-in unfolded some time Saturday evening or early Sunday morning in suburban Toronto, few details had come to light, including what motivated the thieves to target the office and take a single computer, while leaving everything else of value behind.
This has led the Tamil community to float a cloak-and-dagger scenario, speculating that the break-in may have been the work of Sri Lankan government operatives bent on intimidation or gathering information.
Fuelling the speculation is the fact that the computer contained information on the families of several of the 492 migrant Tamils who arrived in Canada on the MV Sun Sea vessel on Aug. 12, claiming they needed protection from the Sri Lankan government. The Canadian Tamil Congress fears the Sri Lankan government will discourage the asylum seekers from speaking out on alleged human rights abuses by threatening their families back home.
The army's ouster of the Tamil Tiger guerrillas in Sri Lanka's north has spawned an exodus of ethnic Tamils, who say they are a persecuted minority. In Canada, the names of refugee claimants are shielded by law, and now the Tamil community fears the long arm of Colombo is reaching for the secret information.
The Canadian Tamil Congress is working closely with the boat people, and has obtained many of their identities as it helps the migrants make refugee claims and keep in touch with relatives back home.
On Monday, Toronto police said they have no suspects in the break-in and have identified no motive for the crime. "Right now, there's no indication of that [espionage] but we always investigate every angle," said Constable Isabelle Cotton.
It appeared detectives are investigating the theft as any other burglary. Neither the RCMP nor the Toronto police's intelligence unit had been called in.
Canadian Tamil Congress officials had initially believed information about hundreds of migrants was in the computer. However, the group now says the computer itself held just a handful of the names; most are being kept on an encrypted server.
The group is concerned regardless, saying that some of the asylum seekers have indicated they would testify at a war-crimes tribunal and the Sri Lankan government could persuade them not to testify by arresting or harming their families.
"If your father or your mother was going to be harmed, would you want to speak out?" said David Poopalapillai, a spokesman for the Tamil Congress.
A June report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees notes Sri Lanka's human-rights situation has improved since the end of the civil war last year. Yet there were still reports of harassment, death threats and attacks against witnesses appearing in human rights cases.
"Ever since the demise of the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government and its agents have been targeting the Tamil diaspora," said R. Cheran, a University of Windsor expert on the Tamil community overseas.
While stressing he didn't know the specific circumstances of the break-in, he pointed to a string of incidents he says indicate the Sri Lankan government has extended a campaign to defeat its opponents beyond the island's borders.
In May, for example, a Sri Lankan general told a Colombo newspaper that "the second phase of the war" would be fought overseas and that Sri Lankan expatriates had to band together to defeat Tamil Tiger operators in foreign countries. Prof. Cheran himself alleges that Sri Lankan authorities in Toronto falsely accused him of running a terrorist website.
Toronto's Sri Lankan consulate referred The Globe's calls to the embassy in Ottawa, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite the sensitive information stored on the premises, the Canadian Tamil Congress hadn't installed video cameras. "We never thought people would go to this extent to steal that information," Mr. Poopalapillai said. "We've never heard of anyone breaking into a non-profit."