Seeking a "decisive shift" in the Centre's stance vis-a-vis Sri Lanka on the arrest of Tamil Nadu fishermen, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to secure the release of 33 fishermen, arrested by the island nation's navy, and ensure a lasting solution to the issue.
In a letter to Modi for the first time on the fishermen issue, Jayalalithaa said 33 fishermen from Rameswaram fishing base in Tamil Nadu, along with their seven fishing boats, were apprehended by the Sri Lankan Navy today.
Stating that the previous UPA regime's response on the issue was "meek," which "emboldened" Lanka, she recalled that there were 76 incidents of apprehension and 67 incidents of attacks on fishermen of Tamil Nadu in the past three years by Sri Lankan Navy.
Her numerous letters to the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking "strong diplomatic action" was of "no avail," she charged.
"I hope that there will now be a decisive shift in the Centre's stance under your leadership and that India will now take necessary steps to find a lasting solution to this vexatious question," she said in her letter.
The "resumption of abductions and detentions" by Sri Lanka had sent shock waves among the fishermen right at the beginning of the fishing season today, after a 45-day fishing ban, she noted.
"There was an expectation that, with the change of government at the Centre, there would be a reset in the relations with Sri Lanka and such attacks and apprehensions would cease."
Seeking Modi's intervention, she said, "we hope that the firmness of India's response would ensure that such instances do not recur hereafter."
The fishermen's right to fish in their traditional waters of the Palk Bay was allegedly being infringed repeatedly and effectively abrogated by Sri Lanka, she said.
"This [infringement] is caused in no small measure because of India having entered into an ill-advised agreement, which ceded to Sri Lanka the islet of Katchatheevu, which was historically part of India's territory and undisputedly an integral part of India.
