No attack on Lankan Navy: fishermen

Tamil Nadu fishermen on Wednesday denied that there was a mid-sea attack by Sea...

Tamil Nadu fishermen on Wednesday denied that there was a mid-sea attack by Sea Tigers on Monday, as claimed by the Lankan Navy. All the Rameshwaram fishermen, questioned by district authorities, denied that the Tigers had launched an attack on Lankan Navy on high seas in

Lankan waters, using their fishing boats as cover.

According to the official Sri Lankan defence website, on February 4 evening, two Lankan coastal patrol craft were fired upon by a boat that came along with a cluster of Indian fishing vessels in the Gulf of Mannar. One of

the boats, among the ‘poaching’ Indian fishing vessels, “pretended to be in distress and requested assistance from the Navy boats”. When the patrol crafts approached the boats, they opened fire at the Navy vessel, said the website, quoting sources. The website quoted Lankan Naval spokesperson, Commander D K P Dassanayake, as saying that the LTTE might have hijacked the Indian fishing vessel or were simply disguised as fishermen. He said 200 to 300 Indian fishing trawlers enter Sri Lankan waters every week, despite the presence of Indian Naval and Coastguard patrol boats near the International Maritime Boundary Line.

Ramanathapuram District Collector, Kirlosh Kumar, said at least 40 fishermen, who put out to sea on Monday, were questioned as to whether they had witnessed any mid-sea attack.

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“All the fishermen denied having seen any such incident,” he said. The Indian Coastguard, he added, had alerted him about the incident after receiving information from the Indian High Commission in Colombo.

“Fishermen in Rameshwaram have taken a voluntary decision to abstain from putting out to sea until Saturday in view of the tension in the area,” Kumar said, adding that there was “no doubt” that the LTTE had attacked the Lankan Navy. “We only need to ascertain if they had attacked in the guise of Indian fishermen,” he said.

Meanwhile, Antony Raj, president of the Mechanised Boat Fishermen Association in Rameshwaram, said that about 700 mechanised trawlers had put out to sea on February 4. “Normally, the fishermen return only the next day. There was no such firing incident, as claimed by the Lankan Navy,” he said.

Admitting that the Indian fishermen continued to ‘trespass’ Lankan waters in search of better fish catch, Antony pointed out, “It only confirms our suspicion that the Lankan Navy has not laid any defence system under the sea and that our Government is using the sea mine threat as a ruse to prevent us from going into Lankan waters. I believe the latest claim of a sea attack by the LTTE is also a ‘cooked-up story’ to scare us away from Lankan waters.”