Eight fishers assaulted and robbed by 'Lankan assailants'

TRICHY: Two groups of eight fishermen from Nagapattinam and Mayiladuthurai districts were robbed by unidentified assailants allegedly from Sri Lanka on Wednesday night. The attacks occurred separately when they were fishing off Kodiyakarai in Nagapattinam district.

One group comprising K Govindasamy, G Ramesh, V Vetri and G Ravi ventured into the sea from Seruthur in Keelaiyur block in Nagapattinam district. Another group comprising S Ramakrishnan, G Senthil, K Jegan and D Samuel, hailed from villages like Pudupettai and Thiruvenkadu in Mayiladuthurai district, and had been camping in Kodiyakarai for the past few months.

Both groups left for fishing on fibreglass-reinforced plastic (FRP) motorized boats on April 15. The incident occurred when they were fishing in the sea around 12 nautical miles southeast of Kodiyakarai. Around 10 pm, unidentified people on boats allegedly from Sri Lanka attacked the groups separately. They snatched equipment such as transceivers, GPS, batteries, mobile phones, fishing rods and torch lights from the fishers besides several kilogram of fish from the two boats. They also seized a 40hp outboard engine from Seruthur boat before fleeing.

The Seruthur group returned to their village using a spare outboard engine in the early hours of Thursday while the Mayiladuthurai fishermen landed at Kodiyakarai. As the latter suffered internal injuries due to the onslaught, they went to Nagapattinam Medical College Hospital in Orathur for treatment. Two cases were registered separately at the Marine Police station in Vedaranyam on Thursday and investigations are in progress.