Nine fishermen from the Vanavanmahadevi coastal village in Nagapattinam district were attacked by unidentified persons, mid-sea, while they were fishing to the east of Kodiyakkarai, and robbed of their belongings. The incident took place on the night of Tuesday, October 17, 2023.
More than 35 fishermen from Nagapattinam district have suffered mid-sea attacks and have been robbed of their belongings by unidentified persons in six incidents since August this year.
Police sources said N. Subramanian, 50, A. Murugesan, 41, A. Sundaramoorthy, 55, C. Rajagopal, 62, and S. Mahalingam, 60, all natives of Vanavanmahadevi near Vedaranyam had ventured into the sea for fishing, on a fibreglass boat, from their village on Tuesday afternoon.
When they were fishing about 11 nautical miles east off the Kodiyakkarai coast around 8 p.m., four persons, suspected to be Sri Lankans who spoke Tamil, approached them, also on a fibreglass boat, and intercepted their fishing boat. Two of them reportedly boarded the boat of the Nagapattinam fishermen and tied Subramanian, Rajagopal, and Mahalingam on to their boat, using ropes. They also assaulted the men with the handle of a machete.
The assailants then forced the other two fishers, Murugesan and Sundaramoorthy to board the Sri Lankan boat and assaulted them again. They seized a 600 kg fishing net from the T.N. fishermen and destroyed it, besides snatching a Global Positioning System (GPS) gadget, a walkie-talkie, batteries, a torch, and signal lights.
Meanwhile, the fishermen’s boat, with the three of them tied on board, disappeared from the vicinity. The attackers then took the two fishermen whom they had forced on to their boat, and intercepted another fibreglass boat mid-sea a few nautical miles away, with four fishermen on board it, from the same village, around 9 p.m.
The assailants boarded the second T.N. fishermen’s boat, and assaulted M. Selvam, 35, S. Muruganantham, 36, M. Subramanian, 37, and R. Shanmughavel, 35. They also forced Murugesan and Sundaramoorthy to board this fishermen’s boat and then fled after seizing another GPS gadget, a walkie-talkie, a fishing net and silver ornaments from the fishers.
These fishermen located the missing first boat around 12.30 a.m. on Wednesday. By then, the three on board had managed to untie themselves.
On Wednesday, all nine of the fishers in two boats reached the the Vanavanmahadevi coast at around 7.20 a.m. They were admitted to the Government Nagapattinam Medical College Hospital for treatment.
The Vedaranyam Marine Police of the Coastal Security Group have begun an investigation.
