Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Sunday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take suitable action to get all fishermen of Tamil Nadu, who are now in custody of the Sri Lankan authorities, released immediately along with the 24 fishermen who were already languishing in jails of the island nation.
In her letter to Dr. Singh, the Chief Minister wanted him to impress upon the Sri Lankan government to take effective steps to prevent the recurrence of such incidents of arrest or harassment of Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy in the future. Expressing her anguish over the repeated onslaughts, she said the recent arrest of fishermen had caused “enormous agitation and unrest amongst the entire fishing community in the State”.
She added, “We are agitated by repeated incidents of capture of our fishermen while pursuing their livelihood in their traditional fishing grounds. The action of the Lankan Navy in continuously detaining the fishermen will only escalate the tensions between the two countries, besides creating immense unrest amongst the fishermen community”.
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