(COLOMBO) – A senior Sri Lankan Cabinet Minister on Friday rubbished statements made in India aimed at re-claiming a tiny island situated off the country’s northern coast as baseless and without any ground.
Sri Lanka’s Fisheries Minister Douglas Devananda comments after the narendra Modi Government in Delhi accused the Congress Party and its ally the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu of overlooking national interests in the ceding of Katchatheevu Island to Sri Lanka in 1974.
This is a political road show by regional politicians in India’s southern State of Tamil Nadu since it is election time and it is not unusual to hear such noises of claims and counterclaims about Katchatheevu ,” Devananda an ethnic Tamil and former militant told reporters in the northern city of Jaffna.
“I think India is acting on its interests to secure this place to ensure Sri Lankan fishermen would not have any access to that area and that the island-nation should not claim any rights in that resourceful area”, Devananda said.
The statements on “reclaiming” Katchatheevu from Sri Lanka’s hold “no ground,” he said.
The Sri Lankan minister said according to the 1974 agreement fishermen from both sides could do fishing in the territorial waters of both countries. But it was later reviewed and amended in 1976.
Accordingly, fishermen from both countries were banned from fishing in neighbouring waters.
The local fishermen have led widespread protests to stop illegal fishing by their Indian counterparts in the Sri Lankan waters. They say the bottom trawling by the Indians is harmful to Sri Lankan fishing community interests.
So far this year, at least 178 Indian fishermen and 23 trawlers have been arrested by the Sri Lanka Navy.
