Two fishermen, who went missing after they had ventured into the sea on December 27 from the coast of Mallipattinam in Thanjavur district, were found dead on Saturday on the shores of Thangachimadam and Pamban, near Mandapam.
The decomposed bodies of the two fishermen — V. Kamalappan (40) and I. Somasundaram (45) — were washed ashore at Manthoppu in Thangachimadam and under the Pamban Road Bridge, respectively, police said.
The fishermen, hailing from Nagapattinam district, had gone for fishing in a fibreglass reinforced plastic boat on December 27.
Their abandoned boat, with a fishing net, on the high seas was brought to the shore the next day by local fishermen.
They launched a search operation but they could not trace them. Police identified the bodies of the two fishermen with the help of family members. Kamalappan’s body was identified with the help of his initials tattooed on his hand. He is survived by his wife, Lakshmi, two sons and a daughter. He hailed from Vanavan Mahadevi.
Somasundaram’s body was identified by his son S. Madhavan (20) with the help of the clothes on the body, police said.
He is survived by two wives, three sons and a daughter. He hailed from Nambiar Nagar.
U. Arulanandam, president of the Alliance for the Release of Innocent Fishermen (ARIF), said Kamalappan’s body was in a highly decomposed state and hence post-mortem examination was conducted on the Thangachimadam shore itself and buried there.
The other body would be disposed of the same way after autopsy on Sunday.
