Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday urged the Central government to seek a waiver of the Rs 2.25 crore penalty imposed by Maldives on 12 fishermen from the state and secure their release.

The fishermen were apprehended by the Maldives National Defense Force on October 23 for allegedly entering the island nation’s waters illegally, reported The Hindu. A fine of 4.20 million Maldivian rufiyaa, or Rs 2.27 crore Indian rupees, was imposed on them on November 1.

In his letter to Union Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, Stalin said that the fishermen and their families depended only on their catch for their livelihoods and could not afford to pay the “exorbitant fine”.

He wrote, “It threatens to permanently impoverish them and their families.”

Stalin said that the external affairs minister’s “timely intervention can bring relief to these fishermen and their families, who are currently facing an extremely difficult situation”.

The chief minister had written to Jaishankar on October 28 as well, requesting him to secure the release of the fishermen and their boats, reported India Today.

He told Jaishankar that the men ventured for fishing on October 1 from the Tharuvaikulam fish landing centre in the Thoothukudi district.

The fishermen had set sail on a boat called Holy Sprit, belonging to a man named Antony Jayabalan, according to The Hindu. After they were detained, Jayabalan was asked to depose before Maldives’ Ministry of Fisheries, Marine Resources and Agriculture.

Jayabalan appeared before the ministry officials on October 29 to respond to allegations of entering the maritime zones of Maldives without permission, engaging in prohibited form of fishing there and harvesting prohibited species of fishes in the maritime zones of Maldives.

Two officials from the Indian High Commission were also present at the meeting. Jayabalan reportedly explained to the officials that the boat initially entered the Maldives Maritime Zone on October 19, but left once the fishermen realised that they were in Maldivian waters.

They entered the Exclusive Economic Zone again due to sea current and could not promptly leave as their fishnet got entangled in the propeller of the boat, said Jayabalan. “It took the crew five hours to untangle the fishnet and another 10 hours to manually retrieve the 10-mile-long nets onboard,” he said.

The Maldivian ministry, however, dismissed his statement saying that there was no evidence of bad weather on the day. They also alleged that the boat had 10 tonnes of fish and there was no catch log data. Jayabalan said that they did not usually record the catch details in the logbook.

The Maldivian authorities then asked the fishermen to pay the Rs 2.25 crore penalty within 30 days.