Fisheries, Aquatic and Ocean Resources Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekar has ruled out the possibility of any consensus with India to allow its fishing fleet to poach in Sri Lankan waters. He made this declaration in Colombo on Tuesday (01) at a hastily arranged media conference at his Ministry

Chandrasekar said the Indians fishing in Sri Lankan waters illegally would be apprehended and their boats confiscated. The Minister emphasised that under any circumstances there couldn’t be a consensus on allowing Indian poaching.

India has been pushing for an arrangement under which its fishing fleet is given access to Sri Lankan waters without hindrance.

Declaring that the continuing large scale poaching had been inimical to Sri Lanka’s interests, Minister Chandrasekar said that India had been informed of Sri Lanka’s decision to arrest poachers.

The Minister said that poaching had resumed recently after a three-month halt to the despicable practice.

Chandrasekar said that the Navy would respond to the situation as long as Indian vessels continued to cross the Indo-Lanka maritime boundary. Alleging that Indian fishers were employing destructive fishing methods, Minister Chardrasekar warned that unless remedial measures were taken the Indian fishing fleet would destroy Sri Lanka’s fishing resources.

During President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s visit to New Delhi last December the fishing issue was taken up.

Minister Chandrasekar ‘s response comes in the wake of Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s recent declaration that Indian fishermen continue to be arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy because of an agreement signed during the Emergency period, which stripped them of fishing rights in certain parts of the Indian Ocean

The External Affairs Minister, speaking at an event organised by the BJP Yuva Morcha to mark 50 years of the Emergency, said the agreement would not have happened if Parliament had been working properly back then.

“Big decisions were sometimes taken without any parliamentary debate during the time,” he said, highlighting the lack of democratic processes under the Emergency.

Referring to the ongoing issue of fishermen being detained by the Sri Lankan Navy, Jaishankar said, “We hear about our fishermen arrested by Sri Lanka. The reason is that an agreement was entered into during the Emergency under which the rights of the fishermen for fishing in some sea waters of Sri Lanka was abandoned.”