Six fishermen on hunger strike hospitalized

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2004, 18:03 GMT]
Seven of the sixty seven Indian boatmen who are on fast unto death campaign since Monday were admitted at the Jaffna teaching hospital Wednesday evening as they fell ill due to dehydration, medical sources said.

Prison officials Wednesday brought the seven Indian boatmen to the Jaffna teaching hospital and admitted them. They were put on saline promptly at the hospital, medical sources said.

Sixty-seven Indian boatmen are now kept in remand in the Jaffna prisons on the orders of law courts in the Jaffna district on a complaint that they were engaged in poaching in the Sri Lankan waters. The Sri Lanka Navy personnel and local fishermen captured several Indian poachers with their boats while illegally fishing in Sri Lankan territorial waters, sources said.

However except 67 boatmen and their fishing crafts all other Indian fishermen were released and handed over to the Indian Coast Guard personnel by the Sri Lanka Navy on the orders of Jaffna courts.

However sixty-seven Indian boatmen are held in Jaffna prisons till cases against them are completed. and their fishing crafts are kept in the custody of the SLN at Kankesanthurai port, sources said

The Indian boatmen began their fast unto death since Monday in Jaffna prison demanding that those fishermen who have not been charged in courts should be sent to their motherland immediately and the cases against some others should be expedited to ensure their early return to their home country, legal sources said.