Central Intelligence agencies Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) are looking into Monday’s incident of firing by the Indian Coast Guard at a fishing boat off the Vizhinjam coast in Kerala even as demands for a comprehensive investigation into the incident and protests over it strengthened in the State.
Two fishermen, Subin Jagadeesh and Clinton, both natives of Thukkalai in Tamil Nadu, suffered minor injuries when their fishing boat Rishika came under Coast Guard fire on Monday evening as they were returning to Neendakara harbor in Kollam after ten days of work in the sea off Kanyakumari. There were nine fishermen, all from Thukkalai, on board the boat.
The Coast Guard has claimed that they had fired at the fishing boat – and not at its occupants – after it refused to respond to calls for stopping for routine inspection and all mandatory pre-firing procedures had been adhered to. Instead of stopping as per the call given by the Coast Guard vessel, the boat had increased its speed, the force said.
Without referring to the Coast Guard by name, State Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said, “Some more restraint should have been shown (by the force).” He said in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday that the Government would take steps to avoid such incidents in the future and that he had asked the Director General of Police to take up the matter with Coast Guard officials.
Amidst complaints that the dangers fishermen at work off the Kerala coast faced were on the rise, former Minister NK Premachandran, MP from Kollam, said it was not clear why the Coast Guard, whose boats had more speeding capacity than ordinary fishing boats, resorted to firing at Rishika when they could have forced it stop by blocking it through a chase.
“There are things to be known about the incident. It is to be known whether the Coast Guard had opened fire at the fishing boat noticing any provocative act from the side of the boat or fishermen,” Premachandran said, adding that a comprehensive probe, jointly by the Centre and the State, was necessary to establish the truth.
State Congress president VM Sudheeran also sought a thorough probe into the incident. “The Coast Guard say they opened fire at the boat after the fishermen tried to evade an inspection by increasing speed. Only a proper investigation can prove this,” he said even as fishermen in southern Kerala said they would resort to agitation if there was no proper probe.
At the same time, officials from RAW, acting reportedly under instructions from the Central Cabinet Secretariat, inspected the fishing boat detained at the coastal police station at Vizhinjam.
Sources said that the RAW would hold an inquiry into the incident as this had come close to the recent mystery blast off the Gujarat coast. IB officials are also looking into the incident.
The Coast Guard has reportedly undertaken an inquiry of its own into the incident. A team under a top official would examine whether there was need for opening fire at the boat, it is said. A probe report would be submitted before January 24. The incident had taken place at 5.30 PM in the sea between the points of Beemapalli and Sankhummugham in Thiruvananthapuram.
According to the Coast Guard, the boat did not possess valid papers and the fishermen did not have proper ID cards. “The registration of the boat had expired in 2012, as per the papers we got from the boat. It is not clear whether this had been renewed after that,” said a Coast Guard official. The boat, owned by one Jasmine George of Neendakara, was registered in Alappuzha.
Clinton, the injured fisherman, had admitted that they refused to respond to the call for stopping and warnings of the Coast Guard because two of those on board did not possess fishermen’s ID card as they were school students. The other seven fishermen on board, who had been detained at Vizhinjam, were released early Tuesday morning.