Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Tuesday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seek a detailed enquiry by the governments of the United States and United Arab Emirates into the killing of a Tamil Nadu fisherman in the sea off Dubai by an American naval ship.
Quoting media reports, she said in her letter that when four fishermen belonging to Ramanathapuram district, who were employed on contract basis, were engaged on Monday in fishing in a civilian vessel at Jabel Ali, about 30 miles northwest of Dubai and a frequent docking point for American Naval vessels, a security team on board the US Naval Ship ‘Rappahannock’ fired at the fishing boat after it “disregarded warnings and raced towards the ship”.
While 25-year-old A. Sekhar died, the three – M. Panduvanathan, K.Muthukannan and R. Muthumaniraj – sustained bullet injuries and were hospitalised, she said, expressing her sense of pain over the incident.
She also requested Dr Singh to ensure that due compensation was paid to the families of the deceased and the injured. Indian Embassy officials concerned may be advised to render all necessary medical and other assistance to the injured. “As the dead and injured fishermen are innocent fishermen who were conducting fishing in the sea only for their livelihood, please ensure that justice is rendered.”
The Chief Minister recalled a similar incident in February in the sea off Kochi in which one fisherman belonging to Kanyakumari district and another from Kerala were killed in a shooting by security personnel on board an Italian cargo vessel. The Union government made efforts to get compensation from the Italian ship company concerned.
Solatium
In a statement, Ms. Jayalalithaa announced payment of solatium of Rs. five lakh for the family of Sekhar and Rs. 50,000 each to the families of the injured.
Keywords: Indian fisherman killing, U.S. Navy ship firing
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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