Nagai fishers injured in mid-sea attack

Trichy: Four fishermen from Nagapattinam district were injured following an alleged attack by Sri Lankan fishermen in the mid-sea on Saturday. The four fishermen who returned on Sunday said the Sri Lankan fishermen robbed them off fishing gears and valuables worth several lakhs.
The injured fishermen were M Sivasankar, 55, P Selvakrishnan, 21, P Dhanasekaran, 37, and K Rajagopal, 54, all from Aarkattuthurai near Vedaranyam.The set off from the Aarkattuthurai fishing harbour on Saturday in a fibre boat owned by Sivasankar. When the boat was about 15 nautical miles off the Kodiyakkarai coast around 6pm on Saturday, the fishermen said that they were intercepted by six Tamil speaking Sri Lankans on board of two fishing boats. Police said the Sri Lankan fishermen were armed with machetes, and they verbally abused and assaulted the TN fishermen. They then took away 700kg of fishing nets, a GPS device, a walkie-talkie, a silver chain, a silver ring, and a mobile phone. TNN