‘Treat us like humans’: Fishing wars trap Indians in Sri Lankan waters
Al Jazeera
A record number of Indian fisherfolk were arrested by Sri Lanka in 2024 amid depleting catch in Indian waters.
When Ashoka* heard boots approaching, he began to shiver in fear. The 23-year-old was in the engine room of his boat, as three Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) men boarded the vessel. When Ashoka, an Indian fisherman from Pamban Island at the southernmost tip of India, came out on the deck, he saw the officers beating and pushing the eight fishermen on his boat, using guns, iron rods and wooden logs.
The ordeal continued for an hour, with one of the uniformed men yelling, “Beat them hard, harder”, recalls Ashoka, who was beaten too.
The fishermen — all Indians — were later handcuffed and chained, the steel edges cutting into their skin and causing itching. Chained together, none of them could move; otherwise, they would all fall. The fishermen were taken to a navy camp in Karainagar, north of Sri Lanka. Fifteen days later, two men — whom the fishermen would later learn were from the Indian embassy in Colombo — visited and gave them towels and soap. The men were finally released a month after they were arrested.
That was 2019, and the fishermen had been arrested off Katchatheevu, an uninhabited island that comes under Sri Lanka’s territory, for fishing in that country’s waters. Yet horrors of Ashoka’s experience have only become more and more commonplace since then — peaking in 2024, with a spike in the number of Indian fishermen arrested by Sri Lanka, amid mounting tensions over allegations that military authorities mistreat them in custody.
A record 535 Indian fishermen were arrested by Sri Lanka in 2024 — nearly double the previous year — according to Indian government data. As of November 29, 141 Indian fishermen remained in Sri Lankan jails, with 198 trawlers confiscated.
