P Sivaramakrishnan BBC Tamil service

The president of Rameswaram fishermen association N Devadas told the BBC Tamil Service that nearly 30 of their fishermen were attacked by the Sri Lankan Navy on Monday night and their nets and cache of fish were seized.

However the Sri Lankan navy has denied any such incident.

Indian side also allege that their fishermen were stripped of their clothes.

Around 50 boats out of the 600 boats which went for fishing were rounded up and assaulted, the fishermen who went in those boats say.

'Frequent' clashes

Clashes between the Indian fishermen and the Sri Lankan navy happen quite frequently.

Fishermen from both sides of the Palk Straits have put pressure on their respective governments to find an amicable and lasting solution to mid sea issue.

The Sri Lankan navy has accused the Indian fishermen of trespassing into their territorial waters and say that is the root cause of all the issues.

The Sri Lankan government allege that the Indian fishermen use banned nets which destroy their marine resources.

But Indian fishermen says that both the sides have been fishing traditionally in mutual waters and that they have proposed a solution to the Sri Lankan side.

A proposal placed by the Indian fishermen to share the number of fishing days in the Indo-Lankan waters is yet to be agreed by Sri Lanka.

The officials of the Tamil Nadu fisheries department say that fishermen from their state do not complain of any incident of assaults in the mid sea.

In the absence of such complaints they are unable to take it officially with the government of Sri Lanka, an Indian fisheries department official told the BBC Tamil service.

Indian and Sri Lankan government constantly interact to sort out issues faced by the fishermen from both sides, but no concrete action plan has been put into place till date.

Sri Lankan fishermen have been consistently voicing their anguish over the trespassing of Indian fishermen which affects their livelihood very seriously even in post war period.