Chennai: Sri Lankan northern province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran on Monday said that they had urged the Indian government to take steps to repatriate the Lankan Tamil refugees living in Tamil Nadu.
“We have discussed the matter with PM Modi. It was also discussed with former PM Manmohan Singh who had constituted a committee then,” said Wigneswaran during an hour and a half-long interaction with the press in the city.
“One lakh refugees live in 115 camps in Tamil Nadu, but overall, both within and outside the camps, the number will be around 2 lakh. India should make efforts to send them back with sufficient rehabilitation measures in Sri Lanka,” he said, adding that it would increase the Tamil electorate in the whole island and counter the Lankan government’s attempt to change the ethnic composition, particularly of the northern province, and reduce the Tamils into a minority.
On the five TN fishermen on death row in Lanka, Wigneswaran said, “Though many people have been awarded the death penalty, the punishment has not been implemented in our island since 1976. I told the fishermen’s families who met me here on Sunday that they (the five fishermen) would not lose their lives in all probability,” the former Lankan SC judge said, refusing to comment on the merits of the case on appeal as it was sub judice.
Asked about the perennial row between the fishermen of the two countries, he said, “The problem is deep sea fishing. The Central government deals with it.”
However, he quickly suggested that the problem could be solved if deep-sea fishing were confined to the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. Reluctant to even differentiate between Lankan and Indian waters, he said that the problem started only with the advent of trawler fishing, which was not a sustainable method.
People who wanted it on both sides were politicians who owned the trawlers, and therefore, the problem could be solved if deep-sea fishing was avoided in the stretch between the two nations, Wigneswaran said.
