Enquiries by the police into the incident in which a Coast Guard vessel fired at a fishing boat have revealed that the boat was not being steered by its original driver/helmsman at the time of the incident, and that one of the two injured persons was not a fisherman.
R. Sreekumar, Assistant Commissioner, Fort, said information pieced from the seven persons, including fishermen, who were on the boat during the episode indicated that the original helmsman had got off the boat at Muttom, near Thuckalay, on the State border while the boat was returning from Kanyakumari on Monday.
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“They said that it was not the ‘srank’ who was driving the boat since he had alighted at Muttom. And one of the injured, Subin Jagadeesh Kumar, is a student, related to a fishermsn on board, who had got on to the boat along with his friend Nishad from Muttom. They appear to have been on a sightseeing trip on sea,” Mr. Sreekumar told
The Coast Guard had handed over the seven persons to the Coastal Police by 9 p.m. apart from filing a report on the incident. “We just got the report. We will be record the statements of the seven who were on the boat,” Mr. Sreekumar added.