Navy behind the Mystery of Missing Fishermen- BJP Playing Politics on Dead Bodies – Pramod Madhwaraj
Udupi: Former minister Pramod Madhwaraj on Friday, April 3 again blamed that the Navy officials were directly responsible for the seven fishermen who have gone missing since four-and-half months. The BJP is always playing politics on dead bodies.
He was speaking to media persons on Friday after meeting chief minister H D Kumaraswamy at the Sai Radha Health Resort, Kaup.
addressing the mediapersons Pramod said, “Earlier also I have said that Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the Indian Navy were behind the mystery of the seven missing fishermen. The Indian Navy ship itself was involved in a hit-and-run sort of case. The Navy carried out search operations only for the namesake. It is more than 4.5 months since the fishermen have gone missing. Today the Navy is claiming that they located the wreckage of the fishing boat 33 km of the coast of Malvan on Wednesday, April 1. The wreckage was found with the help of the ‘Side Scan Sonar’ operations and confirmed on Thursday, April 2 by the naval divers. Now my question is why did the union government take 4.5 months to trace the wreckage. The Navy is directly responsible for the missing of the fishermen”, he said.
Pramod further said, “I have spoken with the chief minister about the developments in the missing fishermen issue. We want a detailed inquiry of the missing fishermen, we also demand a judicial inquiry by the retired Supreme Court judge. The state government should give at least Rs 10 lakh compensation for each family. The navy personnel involved in the crime should go behind bars”, he demanded.
He said that he had been insisting all through that Naval warship INS Kochi was responsible for the collision. “A fishing boat cannot capsize on its own. If there was a technical problem in the boat, the crew members had many opportunities to abandon the boat. They would have alerted the crew of other boats. Sadly no such activities were reported. The boat had capsized following the collision. INS Kochi is responsible for the murder of seven fishermen,” he alleged.
He said that the NDA government knew the fact that INS Kochi was involved in the accident. However, the matter was kept as a secret following the Lok Sabha elections. He said; “There was no need for staging a search drama. MLA Raghupathy Bhat is playing politics over the dead bodies of the fishermen. It is a poll gimmick.”