Barely days after he held his maiden talks with India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 27 in Delhi, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has ordered the release of the 29 Indian fishermen arrested four days ago as a gesture of goodwill.
The fishermen were fishing in the seas near Katchatheevu on May 31 after a 45-day long ban on fishing in the area was lifted. They were arrested by the Sri Lankan naval forces for trespassing into the Sri Lankan waters. On June 2, the Mannar court had already passed an order to keep them in remand custody till June 16.
Fishing in the disputed Palk Bay region has been a perennial bone of contention between the two neighbours. India had ceded Katchatheevu, an islet in the Palk Bay strait to Sri Lanka in 1974. Several fishermen have been arrested in the past by the Sri Lankan navy for trespassing into the area. Sri Lankan government claims that allowing Indian fishermen to fish in the area will affect the local fishermen whose livelihoods depend on the fishing ground and who have been trying to build their lives after the civil war that ended five years ago.
Goodwill Gesture
Prior to releasing the fishermen arrested on May 31, Colombo had also released five fishermen on May 25, just before Rajapaksa was to attend the swearing-in ceremony of India’s prime minister in Delhi.
Interestingly, the decision to release the Indian fishermen by Sri Lanka has come hours before Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa’s meeting with Prime Minister Modi to discuss issues relating to the detention of Indian fishermen. Jayalalithaa had boycotted the swearing-in ceremony of Modi on May 26 as a mark of protest against the prime minister’s decision to invite Rajapaksa, who is accused by India’s Tamil politicians in southern states of conniving in the slaughter of hundreds of Tamils during the final phase of the bloody fight against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a guerrilla group which spearheaded a decades-long campaign for a separate state for Sri Lankan Tamils, in the summer of 2009.
Although New Delhi has welcomed Colombo’s gesture to free Indian fishermen, Jayalalithaa has contested Sri Lanka’s version of events on May 31. She has contended that 33 fishermen were arrested by the Sri Lankan navy whereas the Sri Lankan media reported that Colombo has agreed to release all the 29 Indian fishermen arrested on May 31. Daily Mirror, a Sri Lankan daily, published a report on its website on June 1, which reported: “Twenty nine Indian fishermen and seven fishing trawlers found poaching in Sri Lankan waters off the North-Western coast of Talaimannar were taken into custody by the Navy on Saturday (May 31).”
In a letter to Prime Minister Modi on June 1, Jayalalithaa had pitched for a “decisive shift in stand” on the issue as opposed to the “meek response” by the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime.
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