Eleven southern Indian fishermen who went missing in March returned at the weekend alleging that they had been abducted at sea and kept captive by Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
"They took us to a forest area on an island. We begged them to let us go but they threatened we would be shot dead if we tried to escape," J. Climones, one of the group, told reporters in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on Saturday.
Tamil Nadu, India's most southern state on its west coast, is separated from Sri Lanka by as little as 64km along the Palk Strait.
"They said they were fighting for a separate Tamil nation and they needed our boat. We were promised freedom within a week but they kept us captive for 68 days," Climones said.
"Every time there was shelling, shattering our ears, our Tiger guards would tell us to take shelter in bunkers. It was a horrifying experience," he said.
The fishermen were on the Sri Krishna fishing trawler off Rameswaram, a town from where it is possible to see the northwestern coast of Sri Lanka, when members of the rebels' navy appeared in two fiberglass boats.
The Sea Tigers forced the original group of 12 fishermen into their own boats and took possession of the trawler, retaining one of the men, Simon Joyi, who was trained as a mechanic, Climones said.
Joyi has not returned with the rest of the fishermen, police said, and his whereabouts are unknown.
The 11 fishermen who returned will be released to their families "after some more questioning," said Tamil Nadu police chief D. Mukherjee, who had issued a statement on April 27 accusing the Tigers of abducting the fishermen.
Climones said he was certain their captors were Tamil Tiger rebels because they spoke Tamil and listened to rebel radio broadcasts.
During the captivity he also saw posters of Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran.
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