Rameswaram: Over 4,000 Tamilnadu fishermen were allegedly chased away by Sri Lanka Navy personnel when they were fishing near Neduntheevu in the island nation’s waters, a fishermen association leader said here today.
The fishermen from this island town who put out to sea in over 590 mechanised boats on Saturday were catching fish near Neduntheevu when the Lankan navy men came to the spot and drove them away, Rameswaram Fishermen Association president P Sesuraja said.
One fisherman was injured when the navy men threw stones at the fishermen, he alleged. He also charged the Lankan navy men with snapping the fishing nets of 10 boats and taking away the GPS equipment from 20 boats.
The fishermen had to return to the shore without a catch, Sesuraja said. Meanwhile, a team of fishermen from Pudukottai and Nagapattinam is in Sri Lanka to retrieve nine boats seized by the island nation’s navy some time ago.
On 29 December, 2018, over 3,000 fishermen from the State were allegedly chased away by Lankan Navy personnel for fishing near Katchatheevu.
On 20 November, the Lankan naval personnel chased few fishermen away and allegedly rammed their vessel into the fishermen’s and took four of them away to the island nation. In September last year, around 1,500 fishermen from here returned to the shores without fish catch after they were allegedly driven away by Lankan Navy near Katchatheevu.
The fishermen, who had put out to sea in over 275 mechanised boats, were fishing near Katchatheevu when the Lankan Naval personnel in four patrol vessels allegedly snapped the fishing nets of 10 boats.
The Naval personnel also drove away the other fishermen. Same week, over 600 fishermen from Rameswaram region were chased away and fishing nets of nearly 10 boats allegedly snapped by the Lankan Navy for allegedly fishing in their waters.