Rameshwaram sources added that Less than three weeks after the new fishing season commenced in the south this year, the Sri Lankan Navy has struck again. Meanwhile as many as 12 Rameswaram fishermen were apprehended by a Sri Lankan Naval patrol who intercepted two mechanized boats fishing near Neduntheevu in the Palk Straits in the wee hours of Thursday for allegedly straying into their territorial waters.
Moreover a fisherman of Thangachimadam said the Sri Lankan Navy personnel allegedly jumped into the fishing boats of two Rameswaram fishermen N Devadoss and Francis, took 12 fishermen in the boats into custody and took them to northern Sri Lanka for inquiry along with their boats, a representative of fishermen's associations here , P R Senthilvel and P Loyola.
Furthermore they said this was the first major
arrest of Tamilnadu fishermen this year in six months, the last one being in
February. Recently the latest incident has shocked the entire fishing
fraternity as it has come just two days after the Union Agriculture minister Dr
Radha Mohan Singh at a consultative meeting on deep sea fishing with the
fishermen community here, had said that the problems arising from Sri Lankan
Naval harassment, attacks and indiscriminate arrests of Tamilnadu fishermen
will cease, the representatives pointed out, adding, it made people wonder
whether the voices of the Central and State governments was heard at all in
Colombo.
