Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa on Friday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the Ministry of External Affairs to secure the immediate release of 24 Tamil Nadu fishermen and 93 fishing boats apprehended on June 15 by the Sri Lankan navy.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, she said three fishermen in a mechanised fishing boat from Kottaipattinam fishing base in Pudukottai district had been apprehended by the Lankan navy and taken to Kankesanthurai in the island.

“The Sri Lankan authorities adamantly refuse to recognise the traditional and historic rights of our Tamil Nadu fishermen to eke out their livelihood from fishing in the traditional waters of the Palk Bay. At the root of the problem are the ill-advised Indo-Sri Lankan agreements of 1974 and 1976 which unconstitutionally ceded Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka”, she said.

The Chief Minister recalled that she had challenged the legal validity of the Indo- Sri Lankan agreements of 1974 and 1976 before the Supreme Court of India with the Tamil Nadu government subsequently impleading itself, and the case is still pending. “It is also painful to note that the Sri Lankan government is now adopting a strategy of detaining boats for long periods of time”, she said.

(Deccan Chronicle)