<b>Two Jaffna Families Duped by Indian Boatmen</b>

T.Sabaratnam

Mannar - July 29: The pathetic tale of how two Jaffna families that tried to return to their homes in Sri Lanka were duped and dumped on a sand dune in the mid sea, was related by the victims on Sunday morning, to the District Judge of Mannar.

District Judge M. A. Mohideen instructed the Police to send the two families to their respective homes in the Jaffna peninsula.

The two families who lived in KK Nagar, in Chennai, for the past 12 years, decided to return to their homes in Chavakachcheri and Ilavalai from where they fled in 1990, when the LTTE–Premadasa Government's peace talks broke down and Eelam war II started with utmost ferocity. They boarded the train to Dhanuskody on Tuesday night. Wednesday they engaged a boat paying Indian Rs. 40,000 to ferry them to Mannar.

The boatmen demanded another Rs, 10,000 before they started the journey on last Wednesday night. They asked for an additional payment of Rs; 2,500 while in the mid sea and after an hour and a half perilous travel in the choppy sea, they dumped the four elders and the five children on a sand dune, saying they had reached the Mannar coast. They refused to proceed further saying that, they may fall into the hands of the Sri Lankan navy.

They were dumped on the ninth sand dune the furthest from the Indian coast. There are nine sand dunes on the Indian side of the Palk Strait.

The families were there without food and water for three days, till a small Sri Lankan fishing boat rescued them and brought them to the Mannar coast and handed them to the Sri Lankan Navy.

Indian fishing crafts that went past the sand dune, refused to help them saying that they would be arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy.

The Navy, after recording their statements, handed them to the Police, who produced them on Sunday, before the district judge.

Mohideen said due publicity should be given to the plight of these two unfortunate families as a warning to other Sri Lankans wishing to return to their homes in Sri Lanka. They should come through the proper channels. “That is safer and cheaper,” he said.