File status report on missing fishermen: Madras High Court

Madurai: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday asked the Central government to file a detailed status report elaborating the steps they have taken so far to trace the missing fishermen in deep sea during cyclone ‘Ockhi’ in Kanyakumari district. The division bench comprising Justices R Subbiah and A D Jagadish Chandra asked the government to provide details about number of helicopters and ships used to trace the fishermen.

The court issued this direction on a petition filed by A M Anto Lenin from Kanyakumari who submitted a list of 551 missing fishermen along with address details in the court during the previous hearing. He also sought to identify the dead bodies of the fishermen using scientific methods like conducting DNA test and handover the same to the family members.

When the case came up for hearing today, the public prosecutor appearing for the government said, so far 318 fishermen were reported missing and they have rescued 47 fishermen. The authorities were making all out efforts to rescue the remaining 271 fishermen, said the public prosecutor, adding, that they would rescue the remaining fishermen before Christmas.

Countering this, advocate appearing for the petitioner told the court that as the government did not take effective steps, the fishermen themselves were involved in rescuing their brethren. The advocate further said that so far the government has not provide details about the number of ships involved in the rescuing operation. After listening to the arguments, the court posted the next hearing to December 28.