Fishermen along the Nagapattinam-Karaikal coast say they find themselves in a peculiar situation, unable to locate the approximate point of the maritime border, due to which they end up in the custody of the Sri Lankan Navy.
As per the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, every State has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles, measured from baselines. The distance between Kodiakarai coast in Nagapattinam district and Kankesanthurai in Sri Lanka being much lesser, the fishermen on the Indian side say they are quite at a disadvantage, citing the arrest of 20 fishermen and confiscation of two boats by the Sri Lankan Navy over the last fortnight on the charge of trespassing.
At a meeting conducted by the Fisheries department on Monday to create awareness on fishing within territorial waters, representatives of fishermen associations in Nagapattinam district urged the Central government to demarcate and physically mark the maritime boundary using floating aids to safeguard fishermen from attacks by the Sri Lankan Navy.
Senior officials called upon the fishermen who usually go in trawlers to avoid venturing into the Sri Lankan territorial waters even in small boats. All through the three-hour meeting, the fishermen lamented that while they had been victimised by all sides – the Sri Lankan Navy, the Indian Coast Guard and the State’s Fisheries department – no one was prepared to offer an effective solution.
‘Ambiguous stand’
The fact that fishing nets drift due to strong water currents – as the location where there is a high probability of good catches is at the confluence of the Arabian sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean – has added to their woes, explained Rajendran Nattar, a representative of fishermen associations.
Referring to the statement of Union Minister Pon. Radhakrishnan that India would not tolerate torture of its fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy, Mr. Nattar said the Centre must shed its ambiguity. On the one hand, the country acknowledged that enormous foreign exchange was earned through export of sea food. On the other, shrimps and crabs, which earned the bulk of the foreign exchange, could be netted only through bottom-trawling, which the Centre was compelling fishermen to eschew, he said.
