The Fisheries department would take steps to unite Rameswaram fisherman S. Bharathan, who went missing while fishing on the high seas on May 4, 1996, and believed to be alive in Sri Lanka with his family members, Additional Director of Fisheries (Ramanathapuram) Johny Tom Varghese has said.
Stating that the issue was brought to his notice, he said arrangements would be made to repatriate him. Pointing that the department could not directly get in touch with the High Commission of India in Colombo as the matter would not directly come in the ambit of ‘fishermen issue,’ he said the department would approach the officials in the High Commission of India through the rehabilitation wing of the state Public Department. “We will write to the Public department and try to trace and rehabilitate the missing fisherman,” he said.
After The Hindu carried a report ‘Missing fisherman is begging in Colombo, says family’ in the issue dated May 2, Bharathan’s wife Saraswathi, 62 and daughters R Saravana Sundari, 42 and other family members presented petition to Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao here on Monday, requesting him to arrange for the repatriation of the fisherman.
Ms. Sundari said her father had ventured into the sea for fishing in a mechanised boat belonging to F Johnson of Thangachimadam with three others. After they failed to return the next day, the families were told that the boat capsized in the mid sea and search was on for the missing fishermen. As the fishermen could not be traced for long, they presumed Bharathan had drowned in the sea, she said.
Meanwhile, the family learnt through a YouTube video clip that Bharatan is alive and begging in Colombo, Ms. Sundari said and sought the Collector’s intervention. M. Karunamurthy, fishermen leader, who accompanied the family members, said Mr. Bharathan was presently in the mental health wing of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. “We have ascertained his whereabouts but could not establish contact with him,” he said.
