Lanka to levy Rs.60 lakh penalty to trespassing fishermen

Sri Lankan Government has promulgated an order by which it would be levying Rs.60 lakh as penalty on fishermen who are purpose or inadvertently trespassing into its maritime boundaries.

Lankan Navy has often indulged in unnecessary intercepting and arresting of hapless Tamil fishermen from Rameswaram, Nagapattinam and Puducherry who used to go for deep-sea fishing in traditional fishing domains.  Arrested Tamil fishermen are brutally attacked and put in prison in Lankan soil and are released only after a few weeks or months.  Invariably, their confiscated fishing boats are damaged or not returned at all.

Till now, Lanka had levied Rs.15 lakhs on those fishermen whom it considered as having trespassed into its waters.  However, it has effected a change in the existing law by which the penal amount has been increased four times which means that fishermen who are held on charges of trespassing or foraying into Lankan waters would now have to pay a very heavy penalty of Rs.60 lakhs.

The amended Act was passed by Lankan Parliament recently in what is perceived by political observes as the commencement of a tough phase for Tamil fishermen.