On Wednesday, over 5000 DMK members, including MPs Kanimozhi, TKS Elango-van, AKS Vijayan and Helen Davidson, courted arrest after holding demonstrations in protest against the detention of over 100 fishermen of Nagapattinam and their 18 trawlers in north Sri Lanka.
While the protestors alleged that the TN fishermen were taken by the Sri Lankan navy, reports from the island said they were apprehended by Tamil fishermen in Jaffna. All the arrested protestors were released in the evening. That the TN fishermen and their trawlers were apprehended at sea by their Lankan counterparts and not the island navy was acknowledged even by pro-LTTE website TamilNet which justified the seizure.
The TN fishermen used bottom-trawlers which “destroyed the livelihood of Eezham fishermen… in spite of repeated complaints by the local fishermen over a long period of time,” said TamilNet, adding that the TN fishermen would not dare to venture into the Eezham waters when the Sea Tigers, the navy wing of the LTTE, was operating.
