Eezham Tamil fishers detained by Indian Coast Guard return home

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 November 2019, 22:42 GMT]
Eighteen Tamil fishermen from Jaffna who were detained by the Indian coastguard that trespassed into the waters off Jaffna on 03 October 2019 reached Colombo airport on Wednesday morning after 27 days of detention in Tamil Nadu. The Indian Coastguard entered the territorial waters off Jaffna, near Ezhuvai-theevu, and towed their vessel for five nautical miles inside the Indian border before getting onboard, the fishermen who reached Jaffna on Thursday said. The investigators from the SL Defence Ministry were harassing the fishers for almost six hours at Colombo airport, Annalingam Annarasa, the secretary of Jaffna District Fisheries Federation who had gone to Colombo to receive the returning fishers said.

Furthermore, the Indian authorities have not returned their fishing equipment, Mr Annarasa complained.

Upon their return, the fishermen were treated as criminals by the interrogators from the SL Defence Ministry at the airport in Colombo, and they were not even provided with drinking water during the investigations, he said.

The Eezham Tamil fishers were detained ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu.

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