Sri Lankan navy apprehended 25 fishermen from Ramanathapuram district and four of their crafts on charges of poaching in their territorial waters. Following the arrests, the fishermen’s families blocked a road at Pamban demanding their release.
Among the four boats, three sailed from Pamban village and one from Nambuthalai. Sri Lankan navy said they conducted an operation to chase away the Indian fishing boats resulting in the seizure of four dhows and 25 fishermen off Delft Island.
The dhows and fishermen were taken to Kankesanthurai harbour and handed over to Mailadi fisheries department for onward legal action. The navy said it had seized 32 Indian fishing boats and apprehended 239 fishermen poaching in Sri Lankan waters so far this year.
Though Sri Lankan navy regularly detains mechanised trawlers, they are not usually aggressive towards country boats since they don’t use trawl nets banned in the island nation. Trawling has been the cause of a stalemate in repeated talks between Sri Lankan and Tamil Nadu fishermen.
M Karunamoorthi, district secretary of CITU’s fish workers association, said the Union govt has not taken measures to salvage the country boats detained by Lanka in 2017. The sudden change in Lanka’s attitude could be due to the recent death of a Sri Lankan sailor during an operation to detain a trawler and 10 fishermen from Nagapattinam, he said.
Fishermen protest demanding release of their arrested colleagues and boats captured by the SL Navy, in Rameshwaram.
