The five fishermen from Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, who were sentenced to death by the Colombo High Court on October 30 on charges of drug trafficking, were released by the Sri lankan Government on Wednesday.
The convicts — Augustus, P Emerson, R Wilson, K Prasad and J langlet — were handed over to the Indian High Commission in Colombo on Wednesday after the presidential pardon. They will be flown to Tiruchirapalli on Thursday and they will be taken to Rameswaram thereafter.The release of the fishermen was the fallout of an initiative by senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy. He wrote to both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sri lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa about a treaty signed by both the countries for exchange of convicted prisoners in 2010.
“I had been telling politicians in Tamil Nadu to see reason and use words carefully. There was no need to provoke the lankan Government by evoking Tamil sentiments. lanka understands the sentiments of India and vice versa,” Swamy told The Pioneer.Ramaswamy Wijayabalan, a prominent Tamil community leader based in Colombo, said the fishermen owe their release to Swamy.
“He commands big esteem in Sri lanka as he is the only politician in India who has been steadfast in his Opposition and criticism of the Tamil Tigers for more than three decades,” Wijayabalan said.
Swamy had told The Pioneer on October 31 itself that there was no possibility of the fishermen being executed in the island nation. The letter by Swamy resulted in the telephonic conversation between Prime Minister Modi and President Rajapaksa.in this regard.
Tamil Nadu witnessed widespread agitation and riots following the death sentence awarded to the five fishermen along with three Sri lankan citizens. The prosecution charge was that the five fishermen were arrested by the Sri lankan Navy on November 28, 2011 with contraband of 995 grams of heroin from an islet near Jaffna.
Rabid Tamil nationalists and proponents of Eelam-based in Tamil Nadu had charged that the seizure of heroin from the fishing boat was a drama enacted by the Sri lankan Navy. But smuggling of gold and narcotics between India and Sri lanka are on the increase. Sleuths of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence had seized 18.5 kg gold from two people in Tiruvarur on last Friday. The gold was smuggled into India from Sri lanka.