Indian politicians slam PM Wickremesinghe’s remark on fishermen
Monday, 9 March 2015 00:20
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Reuters: Indian politicians on Saturday (7) slammed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s remark that any fishermen crossing the international border to their country could be shot.
In an interview to a regional Indian Tamil channel on Friday (6), Wickremesinghe kicked up a row by justifying shootings of Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy. He also denied any human rights violations by Sri Lankan Navy saying Indian fishermen poached on their waters.
“If someone tries to break into my house, I can shoot. If he gets killed … law allows me to do that,” Wickremesinghe has been quoted as saying in the interview.
His statement comes at a time when India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj is in Colombo paving the path for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit next week.
Reacting to the statement, the Indian Foreign Ministry said the visiting Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj would take up the matter with Sri Lanka during her talks with various ministers.
“What kind of acche din (good days) are these if 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 cross the international boundary?” asked a leader of India’s opposition Congress party, Manish Tewari.
In the past, the killing of Indian fishermen triggered a diplomatic row between the island nation and its huge neighbor and angered India’s nearby southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Sri Lanka has long fumed over poaching and illegal fishing by Indian fishermen saying that it depletes the catches of its own fishermen.
“The change in Government in Sri Lanka has not brought any change in its policy towards Indian fishermen. What the Sri Lankan Government, the security forces of Sri Lanka have been doing all along has been in complete violation of all accepted international conventions and United Nations conventions on fishermen and people who are on the surface of the sea,” said a leader of Communist Party of India (CPI) D Raja.
But BJP’s senior leader representing southern Tamil Nadu, Subramanian Swamy, said it was a matter of national interest for Sri Lanka.
“It is clear that they will not compromise with the national interest of their nation. And we should understand that; we should work in the interest of our nation, and they in theirs. When our people cross the international boundary to Sri Lanka and engage in fishing, it is obvious that it will be a problem to their fishermen,” said Swamy.
India shares an expansive oceanic border with Sri Lanka without any perceptible demarcation and fishermen on both sides ignore rules while netting their catch.
Fishermen from both the countries frequently stray into each other territory and end up spending years in their jails.
