Indian envoy visits TN fishermen on death row

The Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, Y.K. Sinha, visited the five Indian fishermen who were sentenced to death by a Colombo court last week for alleged drug trafficking.

Sinha met the five in Welikada Prison in Colombo, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Syed AkbaruddinTwitted.

India has said it will appeal against the death penalty handed down to the fishermen from Tamil Nadu. The five were apprehended in 2011 by the Sri Lankan navy on charges of smuggling drugs and were among eight people sentenced to death by the high court in Colombo. The other three sentenced by high court judge PreethiPadmanSurasena were Sri Lankan nationals.

However, the Indian government, which has been pursuing the case of the five fishermen for the last four years, maintains that it has done due diligence and found them to be innocent.