Congress questions NDA regime's 'stooped' level of diplomacy over threat to Indian Tamil fishermen

Congress leader Manish Tewari on Saturday criticized the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by questioning the stooped level of Indian diplomacy that Sri Lanka is threatening to shoot innocent fishermen who had inadvertently crossed the international boundary.

"What kind of 'acche din' is this that even Sri Lanka has started threatening us? Has India's diplomatic esteem fallen so low that now Sri Lanka will also threaten to shoot innocent fishermen who inadvertently crossing the international boundary," Tewari said when asked to respond to a question posed by ANI.

"If my information is correct, the Foreign Minister is in Sri Lanka or is supposed to be visiting Sri Lanka, and then, the Prime Minister is suppose to go there. So, they need to take it up very strongly. When they were in the opposition, they used to thump their chests about cohesive diplomacy, and after coming into office, they have turned into absolute mice," he added.

Prime Minister Modi is expected to arrive in Sri Lanka on a two-day visit on March 13 and 14.

The Sri Lankan Prime Minister had earlier on Friday said that his government was willing to make a 'reasonable deal' with India with respect to the fishing rights, adding that the law creates provisions for a man to 'shoot' an intruder in his home.

"If someone tries to break into my house, I can shoot. If he gets killed...Law allows me to do that... On the fishermen issue, As far as I'm concerned, I have very very strong lines. These are our waters...Fishermen of Jaffna should be allowed to fish. We stopped them from fishing, which is why the Indian fishermen came in. They are willing to have a deal...Let's have a reasonable deal... But not at the expense of the income of the Northern Fishermen," Prime Minister Wickremasinghe said in an exclusive interview to Thanthi TV, a Chennai based news channel.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had earlier in the day said that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj would raise the fishermen issue with her counterpart in Colombo as well as Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, adding that this is a humanitarian and emotive issue which requires longer term solutions.