In its status report filed before Madurai bench of the Madras High Court on missing fishermen following Cyclone Ockhi, the State government on Friday said that a total of 271 fishermen were still missing and search operations were under way to rescue them.
A Division Bench of Justices R. Subbiah and A.D. Jagadish Chandira directed both the Central and the State governments to file a detailed report by December 28 before the vacation court on the rescue operations being carried out. This should include the total number of missing and rescued fishermen, boats and helicopters deployed for the search operations.
The Bench earlier directed notices to Central and State government after a habeas corpus petition was moved for the production of missing fishermen.
Additional Advocate General B. Pugalendhi representing the State government said 47 fishermen were rescued on Thursday and the official count of missing fishermen had come down from 318 to 271. He said rescue operations were on from Tamil Nadu to Maharashtra and five IAS officers were monitoring the situation.
He said that five bodies of fishermen were identifiedadding that the State government was paying a sum of ₹ 250 per day to the families of missing fishermen.
Assistant Solicitor General Kathirvelu, representing the Central government, said that rescue boats and helicopters were deployed for the search operations.
However, Advocate R. Alagumani, counsel for the petitioner, contested the the number. He said that as there was no action by the government, the fishermen themselves had been carrying out rescue operations.
The petitioner, A.M. Anto Lenin of Kanniyakumari, said he had joined a team led by C. J. Rajan, president of Samam Kudimakkal Iyyakkam, to ascertain the number of missing fishermen.
The team had visited the families in the fishing villages of Kanniyakumari and ascertained that a total of 551 fishermen were missing. The rescue operations were not being carried out beyond 60 nautical miles, he alleged.
