The Sri Lanka Navy seized an Indian fishing trawler and took nine Indian fishermen into custody south of Delft on Saturday evening, saying the vessel had crossed the International Maritime Boundary Line to fish in Sri Lankan waters.
The interception was carried out by SLNS Samudura, the Daily Mirror reported from Kankesanthurai.
The Navy said a number of Indian trawlers had trespassed into Sri Lankan waters south of Delft and were fishing there. One trawler was seized and all nine crew aboard were detained. The Daily Mirror describes “a large number” of trawlers in the area; Newswire reports that SLNS Samudura had observed “several” before acting.
The fishermen and the trawler were taken to Kankesanthurai (KKS) Harbour and are to be handed over to the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources — in Jaffna, according to Newswire — for legal proceedings.
The Indian account
Indian reporting places the men from Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu and the interception near Neduntheevu, the Tamil name for Delft.
Fewer than 400 boats had left Rameswaram fishing port that morning, ANI reported, and the nine were detained later in the evening.
Karalmarks, president of a Rameswaram fishermen’s association, condemned the arrest and said the men had put to sea after obtaining the required pass permits from the Rameswaram token office — a claim that, if accurate, speaks to Indian clearance to fish, not to the boundary line the Navy says was crossed.
“Fishermen venture into the sea merely to fill their bellies and alleviate their families’ hardships,” he said, asking whether the central and Tamil Nadu governments could not “invite fishermen from both countries for talks to make arrangements so they can fish peacefully.”
Fishermen’s representatives have called for intervention by both the Indian central government and the Tamil Nadu state government.
Not reported
No outlet names the detained men, gives the trawler’s registration, or says what charges they will face. The Navy has not said how far inside Sri Lankan waters the vessel was when it was intercepted, and no Indian official response is reported beyond the association’s statement.
Context
Detentions of this kind off Delft and in the Palk Strait recur through the year, and the number of crew varies from incident to incident — nine here, ten in an April detention off the north. The figures and vessels differ each time, and this account should not be read against any earlier one.
The underlying dispute is long-running: Indian trawlers from Tamil Nadu fish waters that Sri Lankan northern fishermen say their own recovery depends on, and bottom-trawling — banned in Sri Lanka — is the practice at the centre of the complaint.