Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of ignoring the Tamil Nadu government’s demand to resolve the issue of fishermen being detained by Colombo during his recent visit to Sri Lanka, PTI reported.

“This only shows that Tamil Nadu’s demand for retrieving Katchatheevu has been ignored,” the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader said in the Assembly. “It does not appear that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who went to Sri Lanka, raised the fishermen’s release, too.”

Katchatheevu is a small, uninhabited island in the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka. Both countries have staked a claim on it since at least 1921.

Modi visited the island nation between April 4 and 6.

Stalin called the situation “regrettable and disappointing”. He also criticised the Union government for “letting down” the state's fisherfolk and pledged to continue working for their welfare.

On Sunday, on his way back from Sri Lanka, Modi said at an event in Tamil Nadu’s Rameswaram, that more than 600 fishermen had returned from Colombo over the past year.

“The Government of Bharat stands firmly with fishermen in times of crisis,” Modi said. “Due to the efforts of the Indian government, more than 3,700 fishermen have been brought back safely from Sri Lanka in the last 10 years. Out of these, over 600 fishermen were freed just in the past year.”

The prime minister added that despite some fishermen being sentenced to death, efforts were made to bring them back alive and reunite them with their families.

Ahead of the prime minister’s visit to Sri Lanka, the Tamil Nadu Assembly on April 2 unanimously passed a resolution urging the Centre to retrieve the Katchatheevu island. Stalin had also urged Modi to seek the release of Indian fishermen detained by Colombo.

In 1974, India and Sri Lanka signed an agreement demarcating their maritime boundary, which effectively placed the island in Sri Lankan territorial waters.

However, the dispute has continued to find traction in the politics of Tamil Nadu, especially because it is intertwined with the attacks on and detention of fisherfolk from the state by the Sri Lankan Navy. In recent years, the island has also become a significant political issue in India.

In April 2024, before the Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Congress of “callously” giving away the island to Sri Lanka. He was referring to a report in The Times of India that cited documents obtained by Annamalai under the Right to Information Act to suggest that Indira Gandhi, who was the prime minister in 1974, had handed over Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka.

A day later, the prime minister alleged that “new details” about the matter had “unmasked” the DMK’s “double standards”.

Following this, Sri Lanka said there was no need to revisit the matter, which was settled 50 years earlier.

“They [India] are having an internal political debate about who is responsible,” Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Ali Sabry had said. “Other than that, no one is talking about claiming Katchatheevu.”

Also read: Explained: The Katchatheevu dispute with Sri Lanka that Modi is raking up this election season