A day after the capture of Tamil Nadu anglers by Sri Lankan Navy, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Monday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to secure the prompt arrival of each of the 64 anglers and 77 vessels in Lankan guardianship.
"I ask for your own mediation to issue bearings to the External Affairs Ministry to bring up the matter with the Sri Lankan powers and secure the prompt arrival of our 64 anglers and 77 angling vessels still in Sri Lankan guardianship,"
she said in a letter to Mr. Modi.
"May I ask for you to accord the most elevated need to this issue," she said.
Expressing that the fear of Tamil Nadu anglers by the Sri Lankan Navy proceeded with unabated, she said 29 anglers and their four angling water crafts were captured by them in right on time hours of yesterday in two separate episodes.
In the principal occurrence, nine anglers on board an automated angling watercraft, from the Rameswaram angling base, were captured and taken to Thalaimannar in the neighboring nation.
Fifteen anglers on board two water crafts and five others on board another vessel from Threspuram in Tuticorin District were taken into care and taken to Kalpitiya, in Sri Lanka, she said.
"The privilege to life and employment of Tamil Nadu anglers who carry on angling in the conventional waters of the Palk Bay is being encroached upon by the Sri Lankan Navy's repetitive activities of dread, assault and badgering of the guiltless anglers," she said.
She repeated that India's sway over Katchatheevu, an islet in the Palk Strait surrendered to Sri Lanka in 1974, ought to be restored.
