NAGAPATTINAM: In the second such incident in three days, a group of five fishers from the district were assaulted and robbed by unidentified men - allegedly from Sri Lanka - near Point Calimere on Tuesday. In a separate incident in Ramanathapuram, a fisherman sustained injuries on his leg in an alleged incident of stone pelting by the Sri Lankan Navy near the IMBL.
According to sources, the group consisting of K Sakthibalan (20), M Kannan (20), S Suriya (19), A Harikrishnan (25) and T Chiranjeevi (20) from Seruthur village in Keelaiyur block left Seruthur early on September 24 in an FRP motorised boat. They were fishing a few nautical miles southeast of Kodiyakarai on Monday night.
"We were netting fish around 7 pm, when a group of about eight people came to us in a couple of boats. They boarded our vessel, placed a knife at our throats and demanded our equipment. They also landed blows with steel pipes," said K Sakthibalan, the boat owner.
The assailants allegedly stole equipment such as GPS, transceiver, battery, and fishing net and seized around 500 kilos of catch before fleeing the scene. The injured fishers returned to Seruthur on Tuesday morning. A case was registered at Vedaranyam Marine Police Station based on the complaint from injured fishers.