Lanka asked to check trigger-happy Navy

He said the Centre had already taken up the killing of three fishermen off the coast at Kodiakarai in Nagapattinam district on April 29 with the Sri Lankan High Commission in New Delhi and the Indian mission in Colombo was also asking the government there to restrain its naval personnel deployed in its territorial waters close to India.

Sharing the members’ anguish and anger over the latest incident of firing, he said even if it was true that the fishermen had crossed into Sri Lankan territorial waters, none had given its Navy any right to kill them.

However, he distanced himself from extreme remedies suggested by some members, including snapping of diplomatic ties with Sri Lanka and retaliatory action, saying as far as the state government was concerned, it was bound to follow the Centre in matters of external affairs policy.

Karunanidhi said the Centre’s letter also mentioned that the Indian naval detachment in the area had been asked to give its assessment of the Sri Lankan Navy’s involvement in the latest incident.

Giving details of the frequency with which the Sri Lankan Navy was firing on Tamil Nadu fishermen, he said there had been over 140 instances since 1992, in which nearly 80 people had been killed, including four this year so far.

Criticising P R Sundaram (AIADMK) for giving a political twist to the issue by dragging in the question of retrieving Kachchatheevu, an island in the Palk Straits ceded to Sri Lanka by India in 1974, Karunanidhi said the then DMK regime had recorded its strong protest against the cession.

Later, some provisions of the 1974 agreement ceding the island were deleted by a 1976 accord, taking away the Tamil fishermen’s right to visit the island (which houses a Christian shrine) on pilgrimage and their fishing rights in the area, the Chief Minister said.

Successive state governments had been fighting with the Centre for restoring the provisions since then, he said. However, the Kachchatheevu issue was quite different from the problem of unprovoked firing by the Lankan Navy.

Karunanidhi said in the April 29 incident, three men from Akkaraippettai village in Nagapattinam district – Kumar (20), Munusamy (24) and Anjappan (28) – were killed on the spot, while three others were nursing bullet injuries in hospital. The families of the deceased had been paid a solatium of Rs one lakh each, and they would also get Rs 1.50 lakh each through group insurance schemes in force, he said.

He said the Nagapattinam district collector had written to the Chief Secretary stating that there was no law and order problem there. The fisherfolk in the district were going to organise a silent procession at Nagapattinam on May 5.

Earlier, several members spoke out strongly against the Sri Lankan Navy, accusing it of crossing into Indian territorial waters and slaying innocent fishermen.

Nizamuddin (INL) suggested snapping of diplomatic ties with Sri Lanka and adoption of a House resolution against the island’s Navy. C Gnanasekaran (TMC) said Sri Lankan naval patrol vessels should be seized if they were found in Indian waters. V Sivapunniyam (CPI) blamed the Centre’s laxity in not maintaining a proper vigil at sea.

R Bernard (DMK) said the root of the problem was the ceding of Kachchatheevu by the then Congress government at the Centre. Sundaram favoured steps to retrieve the island. D Mony (CPI-M), I Ganesan (PMK), Abdul Nasser (Tamil Maanila National League), C Velayudhan (BJP) and Dr K Krishnasamy (Puthiya Tamizhagam) also spoke on the issue.