Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said fishermen from India are destroying the environment by using massive bottom-trawlers, depleting all resources of fish, an act his government “cannot tolerate.” He made these comments in an exclusive interview with The Hindu yesterday.

“Not one or two, but hundred trawlers” came towards Sri Lankan waters, he has said. “They are bad for us, bad for the environment, bad for India, too,” Rajapaksa has stated, citing bottom-trawling as the reason for India losing “all its resources.”

Suggesting that Sri Lanka’s objection was more to the use of bottom-trawlers than to Indian fishermen crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line, Mr. Rajapaksa said he had always believed that fish did not have borders and fishermen followed fish.

President Rajapaksa has also told that the fishermen who were released were “innocent daily wage labourers.”

While Sri Lanka may release the Indian fishermen arrested on charges of illegal fishing, the government will not release the Indian trawlers in its custody, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said. If they are released, the trawlers will return to do the same thing again and again, he has stressed.

Meanwhile, the largest constituent party of the Tamil National Alliance has also demanded a ban of bottom trawling recently. During the 15th National Convention of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) at Vavuniya, the party demanded a total ban on bottom trawling. The ITAK also demanded that fishermen from both countries be given all the necessary facilities to engage in traditional fishing methods and in deep sea fishing.
(With inputs from The Hindu)