Sri Lankan Navy apprehends 21 fishermen, two boats seized

RAMESWARAM: The Sri Lankan Navy apprehended 21 fishermen and seized two of their boats, said the president of the Rameswaram Fishermen Association, N Devadass.

Yesterday, more than 480 boats went to sea from Rameswaram to catch fish. At night, while they were engaged in fishing in the Palkbay sea area between Appadeevu and Nedundeevu, the Sri Lankan navy came and apprehended all the 21 fishermen and confiscated their boats, Devadass said.

Fishermen claimed that they had come to fish from across the border, and the Sri Lankan Navy took them to the Kankesanturai naval base for investigation. "This is causing turmoil among the Rameswaram fishermen," he said.

In another incident, family members of four arrested fishermen staged a protest in Ramanathapuram on Friday, demanding their release after they were jailed in Kuwait last year.

The family members alleged that they were falsely implicated in a case of drug smuggling that was filed in December 2023.

Four fishermen, Sesu and Karthik, fishermen from Tiruppalaikudi, Ramanathapuram district, Santhuru, a fisherman from the Morpannai area, and Vinodkumar, a fisherman from the Pasipattanam area, were arrested on December 5, 2023.

Ramanathapuram District Maritime Workers' Union held a demonstration in front of the district collector's office to demand their immediate release as prisoners of trial in the Kuwaiti jail.

A person who was smuggling drugs in a boat was caught there. Four fishermen from Tamil Nadu who were not connected to the case have been included in the case of wrongful smuggling of drugs, the union members said.

More than 500 people from Tirupalaikudi, Morpannai, and Pasipattinam fishing villages came together with their families and raised slogans to emphasize their demands.