RAMANATHAPURAM
The district administration has ordered the repatriation of Sri Lankan Tamil fisherman A. Mariadoss who had been waging a battle to return home ever since the Rameswaram fishermen rescued and brought him here when he was battling for life on the high seas in December 2017.
After the Director of Fisheries intimated that the Ministry of External Affairs had no objection in repatriating the fisherman, Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao directed the Superintendent of Police, Coastal Security Group, to hand over the fisherman to the Indian Coast Guard so as to repatriate him to Sri Lanka.
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This followed a letter from P. Senthilkumar, Principal Secretary, Public, directing the Collector to ‘release’ and repatriate the fisherman to his homeland and send report on action taken to the government at the earliest.
After he was brought here, Mr. Mariadoss had been running from pillar to post to return home when V. Ramalingam, sub-judge and secretary of District Legal Services Authority, came to his rescue. Thanks to his intervention, the Joint Interrogating Committee, chaired by the then Collector S. Natarajan, met in August and recommended his repatriation.
As there was no sign of his repatriation for nearly two months, Mr. Mariadoss knocked at the doors of the DLSA again last month, after which, Mr. Ramalingam took up the matter again with the district administration to pave way for his repatriation. The fisherman was likely to be handed over to the ICG next week, officials said.
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Mr. Mariadoss thanked the Collector and the sub-judge for his repatriation. He was happy he would soon join his wife and four daughters. He was fishing on the high seas in a fibreglass boat with his colleague K. Andron on December 16, 2017, when the boat, caught in squally winds, capsized. While Andron drowned, he clung on to a diesel can and remained afloat, when the Rameswaram fishermen rescued and brought him to the shore.