Hundreds of fishers, along with their families including children, participated in a protest seeking the Union government’s intervention to bring back 27 jailed fishermen and their five boats, impounded by Sri Lankan Navy personnel on October 14, 2023, while they were fishing along the Palk Bay.
Fishermen from different unions participated in the agitation held in front of the Post Office in Rameswaram on Wednesday, October 18, 2023.
A fisherman leader, P. Jesu Raja, said that the Union government should consider the plight of the fishermen. “Our livelihood is at stake. Braving several odds, we have been venturing into the sea for our survival. We strictly adhere to the rules laid out by the governments of India and Sri Lanka. Even so, under some pretext or the other, these fishermen were held,” he said.
‘Over 125 boats impounded in five years’
Mr. Raja said that while the Union government and the Tamil Nadu government had come to their rescue in the past, one major issue that has remained unresolved was that while the fishermen were released, their boats were not. “From 2018 to date, over 125 boats including mechanised and country boats which were impounded, have not been released. Each mechanised boat cost ₹30-40 lakh. Without our boats, our livelihood is lost, not to mention debt, since many have invested in their boats by taking loans,” he said.
Under these circumstances, the Union government, instead of remaining a mute spectator to the issue, should hold talks at the highest level in Sri Lanka and ensure that the fishermen would not be held under baseless charges. “We are under constant threat, and insecurity haunts each one of us,” Mr. Raja said.
The fishermen and their families, who participated in the agitation, told mediapersons that venturing into the Palk Bay nowadays had become a life or death ordeal. For families of the fishermen, there was immense anxiety, stress and trauma about the hazards they worked under.
One elderly women woman Arputhammal, from Mandapam, said she depended on an income from her only son, who has been jailed. “I live under a small thatched roof put up on a piece of poromboke land. There is absolutely no one to take care of me. I have been traumatised from the day my son was jailed. Will he come back,” she asked, weeping.
Fishermen leaders said that they have been assured that the jailed fishermen would be brought back soon, but they have urged the governments to retrieve the boats as well.
