Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has written a strongly worded letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing her anguish over the Sri lankan Navy’s frequent assaults on fishermen from the State.
Taking strong objection to Thursday’s arrest of four Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri lankan Navy, Jayalalithaa demanded the Centre to direct the concerned officials in the Ministry of External Affairs to take urgent action to secure the release of 11 fishermen and 90 fishing boats in Sri lankan custody without any delay.
The Tamil Nadu chief minister also asked the Prime Minister not to treat the International Maritime Boundary line (IMBl) with Sri lanka as a settled question ‘as the Constitutionality of the 1974 and 1976 agreements have been challenged on extremely valid and legal grounds in the Supreme Court’.
The Sri lankan Navy arrests the Tamil Nadu fishermen who violate the IMBl and fish in the island nation’s side of the Palk Bay. Jayalalithaa reminded the Prime Minister that though she had in the past brought to his attention the Sri lankan Government’s inhuman and cruel strategy of delaying the release of the boats and the fishing gear of the Tamil Nadu fishermen, the Government of the island nation has not released the seized boats and the fishing gear.
“I once again request that the fishing boats and gear of our fishermen should immediately be released and restored to them in a refurbished condition as long periods of disuse would have caused severe damage to them,” said Jayalalithaa in the letter, excerpts of which were released to the media on Saturday.
The chief minister also asked the Prime Minister to urgently sanction the “comprehensive special package for deep sea fishing and infrastructure at a cost of Rs 1520 crore and a recurring grant of Rs 10 crore per annum for maintenance dredging “ which she had requested as part of the Memoranda presented to the Prime Minister in 2014 and 2015.