Mannar magistrate remands five Indians

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 October 2004, 11:43 GMT]
Mannar magistrate Tuesday remanded five Indian boatmen for entering Sri Lankan waters. He directed Thalaimannar Police to hand over fifteen Indian fishermen who were arrested along with the five boatmen to Sri Lanka navy for repatriation. Sri Lanka Navy seized seven Indian fishing boats that were poaching in Sri Lankan waters north of Thalaimannar Monday afternoon around 4.Twenty eight fishermen were taken into custody and were brought ashore by SLN.

However, SLN later released two of these boats and eight fishermen.

The others were handed over to Thalaimannar Police Tuesday morning.

The twenty men were produced before Mannar magistrate N. M Abdullah Tuesday afternoon. He remanded five boatmen until 19 October.

The remanded Indian boatmen are:

Mr. Alaga Muruharaj, 27,
Mr. P. Cader Mohideen, 44,
Mr. Shanmugam Ramamoorthy, 37,
Mr.Selvaraj Rajah, 28 and
Mr. Kurusamy Murugan, 35.

All are from Ramanad District in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu.