Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Monday wrote a letter to Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar, seeking the latter’s immediate intervention to repatriate 25 Indian fishermen who were recently arrested by the Sri Lankan navy.
In his letter, he said wanted to highlight that the attacks on fishermen were on the rise in the recent past and such incidents have caused serious repercussions on the lives and safety of the fishermen.
He pointed to the two recent incidents that happened on Saturday. In the first incident, 12 fishermen who ventured into the sea from the fishing harbour in Nagapattinam were apprehended by the Sri Lankan navy along with their mechanised boat. In the other incident, 13 fishermen who ventured into the waters from Karaikal were arrested with their boat. Of these 13, eight were from Karaikal, three from Nagapattinam, and two from Mayiladuthurai. In a third incident, Mr. Stalin said the fishing boat of a group of fishermen in Tamil Nadu was damaged by a patrol vessel of the Sri Lankan navy.
Seeking the Minister’s immediate attention to the repeated instances of arrests of Indian fishermen by Sri Lanka, he requested Mr. Jaishankar to direct the Indian mission in the island nation to initiate urgent measures to repatriate the apprehended fishermen and their boats.
