Four Indian Trawlers with 26 Indian fishermen held in North

Twenty six Indian fishermen along with four of their mechanized bottom trawlers were taken into custody by naval personnel in Northern waters early this morning for engaging in fishing in Sri Lankan territorial waters. 

The arrested fishermen and their trawlers are brought to nearby naval camp and to be handed over to officials of Fisheries Department for further legal action. 

The arrest came in the wake of government taking up the matter with New Delhi following  last week's death of Navy sailof who died during an accident involving Indian bottom trawlers in Northern waters last week. 

Earlier The Sunday Times reported that Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to New Delhi, Kshenuka Senewiratne, met India’s External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, last week and conveyed the Sri Lankan Government’s concerns over the incident of a naval officer being killed while encountering Indian fishermen illegally operating in Sri Lankan territorial waters.

Ms. Senewiratne met the Indian Minister in New Delhi on the same day of the incident taking place in Sri Lanka’s northern waters, where Indian fishermen have been engaged in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing for several years.

In Colombo, the Foreign Ministry summoned a diplomat from the Indian High Commission to convey the Sri Lankan government’s concerns about the incident. The ministry’s South Asia Director General  Niluka Kadurugamuwa conveyed the government’s concerns and also reiterated Sri Lanka’s opposition through a formal note to continuing IUU fishing, especially bottom trawling and indiscriminate poaching by Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan waters.