MADURAI: The Sri Lankan Navy apprehended seventeen Tamil Nadu fishermen on Monday night for trespassing into Sri Lanka's territorial waters. Sources said they were held while fishing near Neduntheevu.

The arrested fishermen had ventured into the sea off Rameswaram on two mechanised boats on Monday morning after obtaining permit tokens from the fisheries department. After arresting them, the mechanised boats, which bear registration numbers – ‘IND TN-10-MM-206’, and ‘IND-TN-10-MM-543’ were detained by the Sri Lankan Navy.

The detained fishermen were identified as F Irudhayam (59) of Soosai Pattinam, Thangachimadam, S Arockiyadoss (49), R Anthoniyar Adimai (64) of Victoria Nagar, Thangachimadam, A Rohansian (53), N Muniyandi (59) of Ramanathapuram, K Jaganathan (60) of Panaiyadiyenthal, M Ramachandran (40) of Sathya Nagar, A Poondiraj (38) of Manthoppu, Rameswaram, R Amalraj (27) of Soosaiyappar Pattinam, D Yakobu (35) of Pamban, A. Kirubakaran (56) of Manthoppu, K Arul Dhinakaran (24), J Madhavan (22), J Antony Isaac (19), A David (50) of Rajiv Gandhi Nagar and S Karthikeyan (27) of Market Street, Rameswaram, sources said.

N Devadoss, president, Rameswaram Fishermen Cooperative Society, said when Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, there were high hopes. “But those hopes went up in smoke as the SL Navy continued to arrest several fishermen of TN. Arrests were occurring every week,” he rued.