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Govt. may release Indian trawlers next week
The Government is likely to release Indian trawlers in Sri Lankan custody, Fisheries Ministry Secretary R.M.B. Dissanayake said yesterday.
He said the External Affairs Ministry would in the coming days recommend the release of the vessels which were taken into custody by the Sri Lanka Navy along with the Indian fishermen for poaching in Sri Lanka’s waters.
The move comes after the subject cropped up at the meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Mahinda Rajapaksa on the sidelines of the 18th South Asian Summit in Kathmandu, Nepal on Thursday.
Earlier Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) senior member Subramanian Swamy tweeted that he had met Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and given him a list containing the details of 76 boats.
Meanwhile the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has called for the release of the three Jaffna fishermen who, along with five Indian fishermen, were sentenced to death recently by the Colombo High Court for smuggling narcotics. The five Indian fishermen were pardoned by President Rajapaksa following a request from Premier Modi amid protests across Tamil Nadu over the conviction.
TNA spokesperson Suresh Premachandran said all eight persons were convicted for the same offence, but only some were pardoned. “It is not acceptable that a section of the convicts were released and the rest remain in jail. We welcome the release of the Indian fishermen but at the same time we believe the law should be applied equally to everyone, whether they are locals or foreigners,” he said.
For the past two weeks, the fisher community in Jaffna has been staging protests demanding a presidential pardon for the three fishermen.
The protesters met Minister Douglas Devananda and handed over an appeal urging President Rajapaksa to pardon the Jaffna fishermen. The minister assured them that he would raise the issue with the President.
“I have been in contact with the President regarding this issue, but I do not want to comment on the dialogue we are engaged in. I will speak to him again next Tuesday at the Cabinet meeting,” Mr Devananda told the Sunday Times.