July 21, 2008 (LBO) – India’s prime minister has promised to raise the issue of alleged attacks by the Sri Lanka navy on Indian fishermen at a South Asian regional summit next month, a media report said.
India’s Economic Times newspaper said the Tamil Nadu Congress president K V Thangkabalu had led a delegration to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday.
The newspaper quoted Thangkabalu as saying that Singh would take up the matter at the “highest level in Sri Lanka” during his visit next month to the island.
On Saturday Sri Lankan envoy C R Jayasinghe was summoned by India’s external affairs ministry over the fishermen issue.
Indian reports said India had voiced its “deep concern” to Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka’s deputy high commissioner (ambassador) to India P M Amza was quoted by BBC as saying that the Sri Lankan navy had nothing to do with a recent incident in which two fishermen from Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu were killed.