51 fishermen repatriated
In return, India hands over 52 Lankans to island navy.
Chennai/Karaikal: After an ordeal of three months, 51 fishermen from Tamil Nadu and Karaikal, who were arrested by the Lankan navy, returned home on Thursday, after Indian Coast Guard (ICG) repatriated them.
The ICG ship Vishwast that sailed from Chennai on Wednesday with 52 Lankan fishermen reached the designated position of handing and taking over near international maritime boundary line (IMBL) at 11 am on Thursday.
But the Lankan naval ship Shakthi and two other coast guard vessels carrying a total of 51 fishermen arrived only at 12.30 pm. Ponnusamy, a fisherman from Karaikal could not return home as he was hospitalised.
The reunion was emotional for the fishermen as their family members along with TN fisheries minister K.A. Jayapal and Nagapattinam collector T.K. Ponnusamy welcomed them at Karaikal port.
The fishermen — 22 from Karaikal and 30 from Nagapattinam and Pudukottai districts — were arrested by the Lankan navy on October 16 and 20 for allegedly fishing in the Lankan waters and were remanded to judicial custody in Trincomalee and Jaffna.
Arulselvan, one of the fishermen from Karaikal told this newspaper that they had suffered untold hardship inside the prison and were also denied food and other amenities. “Our survival became a question mark and we really thank the Central government for repatriating us,” he said.
However, the fishermen were upset, as their fishing boats were not returned. Ramesh Kumar, another fisherman said the Lankan authorities would always promise to release them when they took them to court, but only extended their remand. “We continued to face hardship in the prison,” he added.
Following the talks by two countries on the fishermen issue, the concurrent repatriation of both countries fishermen took place on Thursday. ICG (east) commander IG Satya Prakash Sharma said the coast guard has been doing this repatriation on a regular basis.