GANGASAGAR: Some among the 95 Indian fishermen who spent over two months in custody in Bangladesh after being detained for inadvertently entering its territorial waters were tortured in custody, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee said Monday, reports Rohit Khanna.
Banerjee, who handed over a Rs-10,000 grant to each of the 95 fishermen after talking to them, contrasted this with the care the Bengal administration took of Bangladeshi fishermen who were lodged in prisons here after straying into Indian waters.
I was not aware of this. But I noticed that some of them were walking with a limp when they came to talk to me. I asked them the reason. They were initially hesitant but then they told me they were beaten up (in custody). Their hands were tied and they were thrashed with rods. They have injuries waist down,” Banerjee said before asking the district administration to get them treated.
“They were just victims of circumstance. They did not enter Bangladesh territorial waters knowingly,” Banerjee said.
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