Friday, 16 July 2010 23:21 Mizzima News
New Delhi (Mizzima) – Seven Burmese fishermen who allege they were starved and tortured by their Indian skipper were indicted by a court in the eastern Indian state of Orissa on Monday for illegal entry to India after being arrested at one of the state’s main ports, police said.
The first class magistrates’ court at Kujang, just west of Paradip Port, charged the group as illegal aliens. They told police they had fled ashore after fishing in Indian waters about five miles (eight kilometres) off the coast when coast guard officers arrested them on July 3 as they walked around the port about 1,060 miles (1,700 kilometres) southeast of the India capital, New Delhi.
“We arrested them for not having proper documents. We charged them as illegal aliens”, Paradip marine police station officer on duty Tezraj Patel told Mizzima.
The seven worked on the Madala-IV motor schooner in Indian waters along with eight other Burmese, 15 Thai nationals and nine Indian nationals.
They told marine police that after the Madala skipper had failed to provide them with regular rations and had tortured them, they came ashore on another fishing boat with the nine Indians. The coast guard officers detained them and transferred them to the marine police after releasing the Indian fishermen whose documents were in order, Patel said.
Police summoned for questioning the boat’s owner, Sunil Kumar, from the major Orissa port of Visakhapatnam, 340 miles (540 kilometres) along the coast south from Paradip. Kumar failed to appear, leaving the Burmese fishermen without any support in their case.
The fishermen were being held at Kukang prison on remand ahead of their trial, Patel said. They were facing a minimum of three and half months to five years in prison if found guilty.
The court and police have sent a memorandum to the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs requesting that it make the Burmese embassy in New Delhi aware of the case. But the ministry told Mizzima they were yet to receive the memorandum.
Mizzima telephoned the Burmese embassy in New Delhi but was unable to reach anyone for comment.
Additional reporting by Kyaw Mya
Friday, July 16, 2010
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