Nine TN fishermen attacked mid-sea by Sri Lankan pirates, sixth attack in 2 months

Chennai, Oct 18 (IANS) Nine Indian fishermen from Tamil Nadu were attacked mid-sea while they were fishing in the east of Kodaikkarai coast, police said on Wednesday.

The incident occurred on Tuesday night.

Notably, this is the sixth such attack on Tamil fishermen in the past two months.

The fishers, who were attacked and robbed off their belongings in mid-sea, complained to the police that the attackers were suspected to be from Sri Lankan and were speaking Tamil.

Police said that N. Subramanian( 50), A. Murugesan (45), A. Sundaramoorthy (49), C. Rajagopal (63 ) and S. Mahalingam (60), natives of Vanavanmahadevi near Vedaranyam had ventured into the sea on the afternoon of Tuesday.

Fishermen told police that while they were fishing in mid-sea off Kodaikarai coast, when four men allegedly Sri Lankans intercepted them and two persons boarded the boat and attacked the fishermen and tied three of them to the boat. They also took away two fishermen in their speed boat and sped away along with 600 kg of fishing net, GPS system and other materials in the boat.

The pirates then located another fishing boat and entered it and attacked N. Selvam (36), S. Muruganantham (37), M. Subramanian (36) and R. Shanmughavel (34).

They also took away torches, catches, gadgets and fishing nets.

All nine fishermen reached the shores on Wednesday early morning and were admitted to Government Medical College, Nagapattinam.