Experts on Internmational Maritime law point out that Tamil Nadu fishermen are challenging the sovereignty of Sri lanka by violating the International Maritime Boundary line and fishing in that country’s teritorial waters.
“Sri lanka is fully justified in arresting the fishermen and seizing their trawlers or fishing boats. There is no legal sustainability for the argument by Tamil Nadu fishermen that they are fishing in their traditional waters,” Dr Shyam Kumar, a maritime legal expert, told The Pioneer. He said the frequent arrest of fishermen from Tamil Nadu by the Sri lankan Navy and the seizure of their mechanised trawlers for tresspassing into the island nation’s territory is a major dilemma for India.
Though all 94 Tamil Nadu fishermen in Sri lankan prisons were freed at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Tuesday saw the arrest of 15 more fishermen obviously for tresspassing into the Sri lankan side of the International Maritime Boundary line. “The only option to resolve the issue is through dialogues and get some concession from Sri lanka. Countries like Indonesia and Australia have sorted out similar issues by a give and take policy,” pointed out Dr Kumar.
D Kuppuramu, a BJP leader from Rameswaram, had told The Pioneer recently that the fault lied with the fishermen from Tamil Nadu. “We are stealing the property belonging to Sri lanka. Though we claim that the region is our traditional waters, we do not have any right to fish inside Sri lankan territory till we sort out the differences,” said Kuppuramu, a lawyer practising in Madras High Court.
A Sri lankan Tamil MP, Selvam Adaikkalanathan, representing the secessionist Tamil National Alliance, who was in Chennai recently too said that Tamil Nadu fishermen are denying the fishermen in northern Sri lanka their livelihood by poaching from their territory. “We are not going on the offensive only because of the fact that the aggressors happen to be Tamils,” he told a Tamil TV news channel.
Indian Coast Guard officials confided recently that the fault was with the Tamil Nadu fishermen. “They encroach into the Sri lankan territory and poach their marine wealth. We do not subscribe to the allegation that Sri lankan Navy officers attack the fishermen from Tamil Nadu. They are entrusted with the responsibility of guarding their marine borders,” said a senior ICG official. The affidavits filed by ICG in Madras High Court are proof that fault lies with Tamil Nadu fishermen who swarm the Sri lankan territory and trawl the entire fish wealth leaving the Sri lankan fishermen helpless.
The Indian National Ocean Information Services, the Hyderabad-based research institute had developed a satellite-based real time warning system for helping Tamil Nadu fishermen from unknowinlgly venturing out into the Sri lankan side of the IMBl.