FISHERMEN KILLINGS

NEW TURN IN BLAME GAME

The Tamil Nadu Police hold the LTTE responsible for the killing of five fishermen off the Kanyakumari coast, but there are holes in the investigation

PC Vinoj Kumar

Chennai

The DGP says the boat involved in the attack has been seized. The Tuticorin SP says it’s not the same boat

The killing of five Indian fishermen off the Kanyakumari coast by unidentified assailants on March 29 has taken a new turn with the Tamil Nadu Police blaming the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The charge has raised many eyebrows as a string of killings before the incident were widely seen as the handiwork of the Lankan Navy.

The Q Branch, a special wing of the state police dealing with militancy, claims to have cracked the case based on the confessions of six Lankan Tamils who were on a boat that had allegedly drifted into Indian waters on April 11. Video footage of confessions of two of them was aired on Sun TV on May 3. In the video, the accused claimed they belonged to the Sea Tigers (the naval wing of the LTTE) and confessed that their associates had killed the Kanyakumari fishermen. They also said that the 12 fishermen from Kerala and Kanyakumari who have been missing since March 12 had been abducted by the LTTE and were in the outfit’s custody. The LTTE has denied it has anything to do with the killings and the abduction.

There seem to be several holes in the police version. According to Director General of Police D. Mukherjee, the boat seized on April 11 was the same as the one involved in the March 29 shooting, which had the name ‘Maria’. “But those involved were from another group belonging to the Sea Tigers,” he said. The police claim the alleged LTTE boat was ferrying arms from an LTTE ship to a camp in Sri Lanka when the Tigers shot at the Kanyakumari fishermen suspecting them of spying on the boat’s movement.

Survivors of the attack, however, denied it was the same boat when they were taken to Tuticorin to identify the seized boat. Tuticorin Superintendent of Police John Nicholson confirmed this to Tehelka. He said the three survivors had pointed out three differences between the seized boat and the one from which they were fired at.

Moreover, ‘Maria’ is believed to be a high-speed boat, unlike the one that has been captured. Fishermen say the boat had been in the area since a week before the attack, and had been warning fishermen to stay away by firing in the air. The parish priest of Kurumbanai, A. Churchil, told Tehelka that he had informed the Kanyakumari district collector about the boat and its activities on March 28. Before any action could be taken on the complaint, the assailants shot dead the five fishermen.

Soon after the incident, the Indian Navy and Coast Guard launched search operations to apprehend the boat and this was widely reported in the media. In such a situation it seems unlikely that the LTTE would have been so careless as to let its boat roam in the area. “They are not so foolish,” says a pro-LTTE Sri Lankan mp. Kanyakumari-based A. Frederick, vice president of the National Union of Fishermen, suspects foul play and points to the contradictions in the statements of Tuticorin sp John Nicholson and dgp Mukherjee.

Pro-LTTE leaders in Tamil Nadu view the developments as a conspiracy to undermine the popularity of the Tigers, which is believed to have shot up with the air strikes the group recently carried out in Sri Lanka. mdmk leader Vaiko charged the Q Branch with having forcibly extracted the confession. Thamizhar Desiya Iyakkam leader Pazha Nedumaram said that the charges against the LTTE were intended to malign the group’s reputation in the state. pmk leader GK Mani said in the Assembly that the government should ascertain if any rebel group of the LTTE was involved in the incident.

In the wake of these developments, PM Amza, the Sri Lankan deputy high commissioner in Chennai, has become the focus of criticism. Pro-LTTE groups in the state see Amza as an intelligence officer whose mandate is to foster anti-LTTE sentiments in Tamil Nadu. He took charge at Chennai in July last year and has been courting controversies ever since. There have been reports that Amza was meeting Muslim clerics in Tamil Nadu and asking them to instigate Muslims in the state against the LTTE.

இதைவிட பெரியபெரிய ஓட்டைகள் எல்லாம் அதில் இருக்கு தெல்காவுக்குத் தெரிந்தது அவ்வுளவுதான் :angry: