MADURAI:
Sri Lankan navy
apprehended 25 country boat fishermen from
Ramanathapuram
and four of their craft on charges of
poaching
in their
territorial waters
on Monday. Following the arrests, fishermen's families blocked a road at Pamban demanding their release.
Sri Lankan navy said the seizures were made off
Delft Island
. The dhows and the fishermen were taken to Kankesanthurai harbour and handed over to Mailadi fisheries department.
Navy said it has so far seized 32 Indian fishing boats and arrested 239 fishermen poaching in Sri Lankan waters.
Though Sri Lankan navy regularly detains mechanised trawlers, they are not usually aggressive towards country boats since they don't use trawl nets banned in the island nation. Trawling has been the cause of a stalemate in repeated talks between Sri Lankan and Tamil Nadu fishermen. The sudden change in Lanka's attitude could be due to recent death of a Sri Lankan sailor during an operation to detain a trawler and 10 fishermen from Nagapattinam, said M Karunamoorthi, district secretary of CITU's fish workers association. He said Union govt has not taken measures to salvage country boats detained by Lanka in 2017.
English (US) ·