Four fishermen injured in attack by Lankan Coast Guard

Karaikal: Four fishermen from here were injured when they were allegedly attacked by Sri Lankan Coast Guard personnel while fishing off Kodiakarai coast, fisheries department officials said on Friday.

Five Karaikal-based fishermen had ventured into the sea on March 2 in a fibreglass boat and were fishing off Kodiakarai last night when Lankan Coast Guard personnel surrounded them and boarded their vessel, Ilaiyaperumal, deputy director of Fisheries, Karaikal, said. They allegedly threw chilli powder and ice cubes besides attacking them with wooden logs and fled, he said. One fisherman managed to escape unhurt as he hid near the boat`s engines, he said. The injured fishermen returned to shore today and have been admitted to the Karaikal General Hospital, he said. The attack comes a day after a 40-year-old fishermen of Karaikal in the Union Territory of Puducherry, part of a group of fishermen who had put to sea from Kodiakarai in Tamil Nadu`s Nagapattinam district, was wounded in the shoulder after Lankan navy personnel allegedly fired at their fishing boats. Taking a serious view of the attack and firing on fishermen, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa yesterday in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that these incidents should be viewed as an "indirect attempt to intimidate India and browbeat it into not raising its voice" against Sri Lanka on the Tamil issue at the international fora, which is highly unacceptable. PTI