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Saturday, Apr 28, 2007
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Sea Tigers suspected Indian fishermen: DGP

Special Correspondent

They suspected that the fishermen were spying on them

CHENNAI: `Sea Tigers,' the naval wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), were directly involved in the firing on a fishing boat off the Kanyakumari coast on March 29 that left five fishermen dead.

The Sea Tigers had opened fire as they suspected that the Indian fishermen were spying on their movement.

This was disclosed to the `Q' branch by the Sea Tigers, who were nabbed by the Coast Guard on April 11, according to a press release from the Director-General of Police D. Mukherjee.

Six arrested

The Coast Guard secured six Sri Lankan Tamils and their boat "Maria" along with six Indian fishermen and their two boats on April 11 and handed over them for inquiry to the police in Tuticorin on April 12.

Since the boat involved in the firing incident in the high seas in which five fishermen from Kanyakumari were killed on March 29 also bore the inscription "Maria," the injured fishermen in that incident were shown the boat and the Sri Lankan Tamils for identification. But, they insisted that the boat seized in this case was not the one involved in the firing.

The Sri Lankan Tamils were remanded to judicial custody, and taken on police custody on April 20 by the local police in order to ascertain their identity. On April 23, the case was transferred to the `Q' Branch CID.

The Q Branch interrogation revealed that all the above six Sri Lankan Tamils belonged to the LTTE's Sea Tigers Wing. They and some other groups of LTTE's Sea Tigers' wing routinely smuggled arms and ammunition from a ship belonging to the LTTE in the high seas and took them to their camp in Sri Lanka.

On April 10, while they were transporting arms and ammunition, their boat "Maria" developed a snag and started drifting towards Indian waters. When they chanced upon Indian fishermen from Kanyakumari, they dropped all their arms and ammunition into the sea and sought help.

The arrested Sri Lankans revealed that the boat "Maria," was the one involved in the firing incident on March 29. But, those involved in that firing was another group belonging to the Sea Tigers wing of the LTTE which was ferrying cargo on March 29 from LTTE's ship to their camp in Sri Lanka.

Missing fishermen

They told the `Q' branch that prior to the shooting, 12 fishermen from Indian were also abducted along with their boat by a group of the Sea Tigers' wing. The abducted fishermen are in the custody of the Tigers in one of their camps. The abducted fishermen (Kanyakumari - 10, Tuticorin - 1, Kerala -1) are those who sailed off for fishing on March 4 from Sakthikulangara in Kollam in a motor boat "Sri Krishna" and are missing since then.

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