M A I N   N E W S

Fishermen ‘ill-treated’ in Iran

CHENNAI, April 23 (PTI) — The fishermen from Tamil Nadu who were released after incarceration in foreign prisons for over a year today said although they were treated well in Pakistani prisons, but were ill-treated in Iran.

“We were subjected to great hardship in Iran. We were not given proper food and were kept locked up for days”, a fisherman from Valinokkam in Ramanathapuram district, told reporters at the Chennai airport on arrival from Mumbai.

Arokkiam, from Kanyakumari town, said they were not given proper food in Iran and were kept locked up. On the contrary, both at Quetta and Karachi, they were given proper food, including meat. They were given mild jobs like watering plants in the prison, he said.

During the three-and-a-half months they spent in a jail in Iran, they were not allowed to write any letters home, but they were allowed by the Pakistani authorities to write one letter a month, he said.

Arokkiam said the contract on which they went to Saudi Arabia would have fetched a one-third share for each of them in a remuneration equivalent to Rs 10,000 a month. Under the contract system, one-third went to the fishing vessel’s owner and another third went towards fishing material.

“We had valid papers and work permits for Saudi Arabia and we showed them to the authorities in Iran, but were detained for nearly four months there. We were told that we would be sent to India, but the bus which took us left us on the border with Pakistan. There, we were taken to a court and later sent to the Quetta jail”, he said.

C. Gerald, also from Kanyakumari, said they were initially told by Iranian authorities that they would be released in two or three days, but were made to stay for months. “Food was very scarce there. We practically survived on liquid food.”

There was a time when Pakistani authorities used to say they could be released only if Pakistanis in Indian jails were also released simultaneously, he said.

Earlier, relief and happiness writ large on their faces, the 19 Indian fishermen returned to a warm reception at the Chennai airport today.

It was an Easter reunion with their

families for the predominantly Christian contingent of fishermen, most of them from Kanyakumari district in South Tamil Nadu.

They were arrested on February 16, 1999, for accidentally drifting into Iranian territorial waters.