Fishermen did not venture out to sea as a mark of mourning
They came in droves from villages that dot the coastline of Ramanathapuram to Thoppuvalasai near Tiruppullani since evening. They sat on the sand, men to the right and women to the left of the house that has been expecting the body of its only son.
As the ambulance carrying the body of 25-year-old A. Sekar, who was gunned down by the U.S. Navy while fishing off Dubai on July 17, entered the village at 9.20 p.m. on Wednesday, a pall of gloom engulfed Thoppuvalasai. In moments, their restrained silence made way for wailing. As the coffin was placed on a bench in front of the house, women came in groups to pay homage.
The mother, A. Nagavalli, swooned on seeing her son’s body. She had refused to eat ever since news of the shooting had reached the village. Twenty minutes later, the body was taken for burial. Residents of Thoppuvalasai did not venture out to sea as a mark of respect to Sekar.
M. Arumugam, father of the deceased, said that close to 35 to 40 persons from Thoppuvalasai were working on fishing contract in the United Arab Emirates, Brunei and Muscat.
Their main source of livelihood was fishing., . They worked for a maximum of 10 to 15 days in a month. Most of them, especially youth, migrated to the Middle East. They had borrowed money from local money lenders at exorbitant interest rates. Mr. Arumugam had borrowed Rs one lakh and it had been only 10 months since his son had gone for work.
He had sent Rs 20,000 to the parents, who are yet to repay their debt.
The government’s compensation of Rs. five lakh has been received by his family which includes Sekar’s sister Ramalakshmi.
The family’s request to the authorities is to provide a government job to Ramalakshmi, who is married.
The village supports the demand for adequate compensation from the U.S. government to the family of victim of the unprovoked firing.
Those responsible for the shooting should be tried in a court of law. M. Muthiah, his uncle, said that they had planned to get Sekar married in October.
The body was taken from the UAE to Tiruchi in an Air India flight and from there by road to the village.
I join all in condemning the loss of a precious life who had traveled
a long distance to provide succour for his family.
Wish to point out that the vehicle used for carrying body of A Sekar
is a mortuary van / hearse and not an ambulance. Ambulance is a life
saving vehicle. There is a strong among the public that ambulance is
used for ferrying mortal remains. Please help in correcting this
perception as people are afraid of being sent in ambulances to
hospital when in serious medical emergency. Movies also paint
ambulance with negative image as they invariably show mortal remains
being carried in ambulance.
Do center has any action in these incidents ? They are with U.S and
Europe. They do nothing panic !
We already know that USA will not do anything. The best it will do is to
say sorry. Now, our INDIAN Govt. is falling head over heels to have
defense agreements with USA. May Sekar's soul rest in peace. I also urge
the TN CM to help Sekar's family.
The fact is India is a soft state which cannot seek even a partial justice for its citizens.My heartfelt sympathies for the family.
@altaf and syed please read international media on the issue,almost without exception they agree that no serious warning messages were sent.What makes you write what you have is anybody's guess.
The US Navy having the most sophisticated equipment on earth must have been capable of finding out if the boat or the fishermen was of any danger to its safety instead of blindly firing at fishermean. The attitude of US armed forces to undervalue non-american human lives must change. Serious action must be taken on the US Navy personnal either by the UAE govt or the US Govt for having done this mistake.
Indian fishermen should be properly educated by the authorities about dos and donts while
fishing. They cannot pretend to be uneducated and violate international norms. Indian
fishermen usually breach the limits and get arrested by Sri lankan navy. No point in blaming
Sri Lanka while we are at fault.
The procedure followed by US Navy cant be faulted, if seen the tense
atmosphere prevailing at Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Its not
appropriate to simply criticize US Navy's action, without knowing the
real facts behind this firing. Before blaming others, can Jayalalitha
or Indian government tell us about any plan of action on our own
coast's monitoring?
India for that matter doesn't have any set up to check the entry and
exit of all fishing boats in its territorial waters. In the guise of
fishing boat, many illegal activities are happening all over the
India's coast everyday and the concerned state governments, including
Tamil Nadu are just sitting ducks!
How about letting an impartial inquiry be conducted? It's possible that the US ship DID warn the fishermen but they never understood it or had no adequate radio on board and innocently came too close to the warship, and a tragedy happened. After USS Cole incident in Yemen,it would be understandable that US Navy being very weary of small boats approaching their warships with rising tensions in The Gulf.
Selvi Jeyalalithaa should get the bottom of this cold blooded murder of an innocent fisherman. Shame on the US forces to kill an innocent man.
This is an atrocity. I just read BBC and reuters reporting that there was no warning before shooting and that the fishermen were speeding up to try and go around the ship to cross it which is usual practice. This is most likely some trigger-happy nut cases who just finished his x-box shooting game. Reminds me of the videos where they did similar stuff in vietnam. THey need to be caught and charged with murder just like the Italians. I hope Tamil Nadu will take Kerala's lead on this
I condemn the open murder of Shekhar , a fisherman from Ramnad,
Tamilnadu, India. by the USA ship in UAE. USA is not even sorry for, but
legitimising the muder. The USA has its own ethics and Law. We cannot
accept this any more. UAE and India should intervene. Shekhar was killed
while he was fishing.
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