JAKARTA - INDONESIA arrested two people allegedly involved in smuggling migrants by boat to Australia, police said on Friday.
'We have caught two people, a Pakistani and an Indonesian, for taking Pakistani and Afghan migrants to Australia through Indonesian waters,' police detective Widjaya said.
The two alleged people smugglers, a Pakistani identified as Sakih and an Indonesian, identified as Khairudin, had successfully landed a boatload of migrants on Australia's Christmas Island earlier in the year, he said.
'They are now being questioned by the police. The police had been following them over the last two months.' Mr Widjaya did not say if the migrants were seeking asylum.
Migrants who travel to Australia by boat usually enter Australia's northern waters from Indonesia.
People who land away from Australia's mainland 'migration zone' are processed by authorities at a centre on remote Christmas Island, a system criticised by human rights activists. -- AFP
