In two incidents, eight fishermen from Vellapallam and Arcottuthurai in Nagapattinam district were allegedly attacked by unidentified persons while they were fishing mid-sea and robbed of their belongings on Friday night.
Sources in the Coastal Security Group said A. Manian, M. Velmurugan, and C. Sathiyaraj, hailing from Vellapallam near Vedaranyam, and G. Kodilingam, of Akkaraipettai in Nagapattinam, had put out to sea on a fibreglass boat from Vellapallam on Friday afternoon.
When they were fishing about 15 nautical miles east off Kodiyakarai around 8.30 p.m., three persons, suspected to be Sri Lankans who spoke in Tamil, came in a fibreglass boat and intercepted their vessel.
Two of them boarded the boat of the Nagapattinam fishermen and allegedly attacked them with sharp weapons and took away about 600 kg of fishing nets, a walkie-talkie, a Global Positioning System gadget, cooking utensils and valuables. Manian and Kodilingam sustained injuries on their hands and legs.
Coastal Security Group Inspector K. Jothi Muthuramalingam said the fishermen, who returned to Vellapallam on Saturday morning, were admitted to Nagapattinam Government Medical College Hospital. Collector Johny Tom Varghese and N. Gowthaman, Chairman, Tamil Nadu Fisheries Development Corporation, visited them at the hospital.
In the other incident, C. Sivakumar, R. Chinnathambi, P. Palanivel and P. Chinnaiyan, of Arcottuthurai near Vedaranyam, who ventured into the sea for fishing in a fibreglass boat on Friday, were attacked about 10 nautical miles southeast of Kodiyakarai. They were intercepted by eight Tamil-speaking men in two boats. Two of them allegedly boarded the fishermen’s boat, attacked them with a wooden log, and took away the fishing net, police sources said.
The fishing net of four other fishermen — A. Subramanian, S. Anandhan, T. Sasikumar, and P. Sarathkumar — from Arcottuthurai and Pushpavanam villages was damaged by unidentified persons mid-sea on the same day, the police sources said. The Vedaranyam Marine Police of the Coastal Security Group have registered a case and opened an investigation. Nearly 27 fishermen from Nagapattinam district have suffered mid-sea attacks and were robbed of their belongings by unidentified persons in more than five incidents that took place in August and September.
