By PTI
COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan Navy said on Wednesday that they have found the body of an Indian fisherman who went missing after the boat he was in along with two others was hit by a naval vessel of the island nation off the northern coast.
The incident occurred near Neduntheevu late Monday night when the Lankan naval vessel rammed into the Indian fishermen’s boat, throwing three of the occupants into the sea in the impact.
While two of them were immediately rescued by the Lankan personnel, a search was launched to locate the third fisherman who hailed from Kottaipattinam in Puthukottai district of Tamil Nadu.
On Wednesday, the Sri Lankan Navy said the body of the missing Indian fisherman has been found. No further details were immediately available.
Fishermen from both countries are arrested frequently for inadvertently trespassing into each other’s waters.
Sri Lankan fisheries ministry officials said they were planning to have fresh talks with the Indian side which they hoped would facilitate a permanent solution.
The ministry secretary, Indu Ratnayake, said there are eight Indian fishing boats that are currently being held in Lanka for alleged poaching.
In a similar incident in January, four Indian fishermen were killed.
India had lodged a strong protest with Sri Lanka over the death of the four Indian fishermen in the collision between their vessel and the naval craft of the island nation, saying steps should be taken to ensure that such incidents do not recur.
The bodies of the fishermen, who hailed from Tamil Nadu, were later handed over to India.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) at the time said a strong demarche was made to Sri Lanka’s Acting High Commissioner in New Delhi while the Indian envoy in Colombo also lodged a protest with the country’s foreign ministry.
During his visit to India in February last year, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi had agreed to resolve the long-festering fishermen issue with a “humane approach”.
