TN fisherman who died in Indonesia laid to rest at his native village

MADURAI: Maria Jacindhas, a 34-year-old fisherman who died in an Indonesian prison, was laid to rest in his native village Thoothoor in Kanyakumari district on Monday evening.
The family received the body at Chennai International Airport on Sunday and it was brought to Asaripallam Government Medical College for postmortem. After the postmortem, the body was handed over to the relatives. On Monday evening, a funeral mass was held at St Thomas Church in Thoothoor before the body was taken to the cemetery.
Maria Jacindhas, the skipper of the vessel M V Blessing, died in an Indonesian prison after falling sick. Blessing was operating from Andaman and the vessel along with her eight-member crew was detained by Ditpolairud Air and Sea Police on March 7.
Among the crew, five are from Kanyakumari district, while three are from Thiruvananthapuram district in Kerala. They were held for trespassing into the territorial waters of Indonesia. While four fishermen were released on April 27, Jacindhas and three others were held back for legal proceedings.
Jacindhas died in Indonesian prison on May 20 and the body was shipped from Indonesia to Chennai the next day. State fisheries minister Anitha Radhakrishnan and officials visited the family at Thoothoor. The family members said that they need the boat retrieved from Indonesia.
“The boat was registered in Andaman based on local requirements but it belonged to Jacindhas. The family has a debt of Rs 30 lakh on the boat. If the centre doesn’t take efforts, the boat would rot in Indonesia. The family has lost a breadwinner and the centre should at least get the boat back from Indonesia on humanitarian grounds,” said Johnson Charles, secretary of Meenavar Orunginaippu Sangam.