‘Save fishermen’ call gets louder in Kanniyakumari

Thousands of fishermen, who went for deep sea fishing much before the cyclone warning for ‘Ockhi’ was issued, were caught in rough seas and their fishing vessels were devastated.

However, some fishermen managed to reach shore in some of the uninhabited islands in Lakshadweep archipelago.

Though the State government has been constantly updating the number of rescued fishermen, there is no information about many of them.

In such a situation, around 5,000 fishermen along with their family members from Iravinputhur, Neerody, Thoothur, Vallavilai, Marthandam and Chinnathurai marched from Chinnathurai to Kuzhithurai railway station and blocked trains. The fishermen, led by the priests of their hamlets, walked around 20 km for four hours to reach the station.

Meanwhile, another group of protesters blocked the Thiruvananthapuram main road pressing their demand.

The rail roko, which started around noon, continued till evening and the protesters shouted slogans condemning the State and Central government over the poor pace of rescue operation and also for not providing adequate compensation to the families of the deceased.

Though police officers tried to pacify the fishermen, they refused to withdraw the protest and demanded Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami to visit the cyclone-hit villages.

Father Churchill, one of the priests, who led the protest, said that according to the roll call performed by the fishermen representatives, a total of 55 fishermen were presumed to be dead while another 1,013 of them were yet to be traced.

“Kerala government is taking effective steps to rescue the fishermen. If Palaniswami did not act, we will rally to Thiruvananthapuram and request the Kerala CM to merge the coastal districts with Kerala,” he threatened. 

The protesters squatted and cooked food on the railway tracks braving rains that lashed the region during their agitation. Due to the protests, train services between Kanniyakumari and Thiruvananthapuram were affected. Two trains were cancelled and five more were regulated.

In the evening, Kanniyakumari Collector Sajjan Singh R Chavan and SP M Durai held talks with the fishermen. They explained that the government was taking all the steps to rescue the fishermen and assured that the search operation would continue till the last fisherman reaches the coast.

However, the fishermen demanded that the Chief Minister should visit the district and a relief of Rs 2,000 crore to be allotted for cyclone-hit coastal villages.