CHENNAI: A day after the Tamil Nadu Assembly adopted a resolution urging the union government to retrieve Katchatheevu island from Sri Lanka, Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take immediate steps to review the 1974 Indo-Sri Lanka Treaty (Katchatheevu Agreement) so as to get back the islet and ensure permanent protection of the traditional fishing rights of the TN fishermen in the Palk Bay area.
In a letter, the CM urged the PM to hold talks with the Sri Lankan government to get “all our imprisoned fishermen released along with their boats on a goodwill basis”.
The CM’s letter to the PM assumes significance as the latter is scheduled to commence his official visit to the island nation on Friday. On April 6, the PM is scheduled to inaugurate the country’s first vertical lift sea bridge in Pamban near Rameswaram.
Forwarding a copy of the resolution adopted by the Assembly, the CM said the origin of the problems faced by TN fishers from the Lankan navy was the ceding of Katchatheevu to the island nation in 1974.