Straying into a sea of trouble

By R. Elangovan

MADURAI, MAY 26. Mr. Joseph Titus Fernando, 48, of Sri Lanka's Puttalam province, is a man more sinned against than sinning. The lure of prawns landed him and his crew of five on the wrong side of the Gulf of Mannar two years ago.

The Indian Coast Guard ship, `Naikidevi', found them on the Indian side of the International Boundary Line between India and Sri Lanka on November 25, 1999.

As the aasan(master), he was served with a detention memo after an on-board check. The boat and its crew were then taken to Tuticorin and handed over to the police there.

Cases under Section 3 (10) of the Maritime Zones of India (Regulation) Act, 1981 were booked and the crew remanded to judicial custody after four days of detention. Later, they were moved to the Madurai Central Prison.

The Indian Government allowed the five crew members to return home on April 19, 2000, but detained Mr. Fernando and the boat, ``subject to the outcome of court cases''.

Mr. Fernando, on bail, is still in Tuticorin, presenting himself daily at a police station, ``like a hardcore criminal''. The case is yet to be brought to trial. His wife and children are in Sri Lanka.

His boat, costing about Rs. 40 lakhs, is chained to a wharf in the Tuticorin Old Harbour, and he has begun teaching local fishermen net-knitting to meet his daily expenses. ``The money I earn is barely sufficient,'' says Mr. Fernando, who owns three mechanised fishing vessels and a large coconut grove in Sri Lanka. ``Occasionally, I call my wife over phone and speak to my kids. That itself is a luxury.''

Not an isolated case

His is not an isolated tale. Several Sri Lankan fishermen continue to languish in various jails in Tamil Nadu and Kerala for the same reason. Sources in the Prison Department say 42 fishermen are in the Madurai Central Prison while another 15 are lodged in the Thiruvananthapuram Central Prison.

All of them are being held for straying into Indian waters. Most of the First Information Reports of police indicate that nothing indiscriminate was found in their boats.

Generally, such cases are registered routinely under Section 3 (10) for fishing without licence in Indian waters, Section 15 (c) of the MZI Act for failing to produce documents and Section 12 of the Indian Passport Act, 1967 for entering the country without proper documents.

After the mandatory investigation and consultations with State Governments, in coordination with the Ministries of External Affairs and Home, they are repatriated, mostly within a year.

But the recent developments of detention of the boat owners ``till the disposal of the cases under the MZI Act'', and prosecution of ordinary fishermen are causing concern in Sri Lanka, says Mr. Vivekanandan of the Alliance for Release of Innocent Fishermen (ARIF).

A Kerala court, which recently slapped a fine of Rs. 1 lakh on some Sri Lankan fishermen and ordered the confiscation of their boats, has compounded the problem.

``It is a blow to the mutual repatriation process,'' says Mr. Henri Tiphagne, director of the Madurai-based People's Watch, which looks after the legal needs of Sri Lankan fishermen in the State. The High Court in Vavuniya, dealing with a similar violation involving Indian fishermen, merely awarded a six-month simple imprisonment and freed them immediately as they had served 11 months in remand, he pointed out.

But for occasional firing by the Sri Lankan Navy, unable to distinguish between ``hostile and docile'' vessels, Indian fishermen found in Sri Lankan waters are repatriated with little fuss. Mr. Vivekanandan insists that first time punishment for fishing offences should not be severe.

Time for detailed policy

Mr. M. Panneerselvam, an advocate, says navigational expertise is not available to fishermen for differentiating the boundaries. Mr. Arulanandam of the Singaravelar Fishermen's Forum in Pamban, Ramanathapuram district, says mutual respect and common grounds of fishing had been the practice in both nations till the 1983 Jaffna ethnic clash.

The problems surfaced after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam began using a few local fishermen on ``sly trips''. Activists feel it is time a comprehensive fishing policy between both the nations is evolved with stress on a humanitarian approach.

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