Sri Lankan Navy detain 4 Rameswaram fishermen with boat
A mechanised boat, on which the fishermen sailed, was also seized from them and detained.
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MADURAI: Four Tamil Nadu fishermen were apprehended by the Sri Lankan Navy on the grounds of trespassing into the territorial waters of Sri Lanka.
A mechanised boat, on which the fishermen sailed, was also seized from them and detained.
“The arrests were made in the early hours of Tuesday when the fishermen were involved in fishing near Talaimannar,” sources said.
They had set out to sea off Rameswaram in Ramanathapuram district on Monday after obtaining permit tokens from the Fisheries Department.
The detained boat bore registration – ‘IND-TN-10-MM-1072’ – which is a small mechanised boat. A total of eighty-eight boats ventured into the sea on Monday.
Those arrested were Thangaraj, Lingam, Selvam and Irulandi, sources said.
They were taken to the office of the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources at Mannar, where the officials conducted formal enquiries and produced before the Magistrate Court, Mannar. They were then remanded to judicial custody, sources said.
Condemning the Sri Lankan Navy for such action, VP Sesuraja, president of the Traditional Indian Fishermen Welfare Association, said, the arrests of Tamil Nadu fishermen have become a frequent occurrence.
After the 61-day annual fishing ban along the East coast was lifted, seven fishermen with a boat on June 30, seven more fishermen on July 13 were detained by the Lankan Navy, he said.