Six fishermen from Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam district were allegedly attacked and robbed mid-sea near Point Calimere (Kodiyakarai) by unidentified men, police said on Thursday.

Taking serious view of the transgression, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai urged Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to use his good offices to "nudge" the Sri Lankan government to identify and punish the culprits. Also, steps should be taken to recover the belongings of the Tamil Nadu fishermen, he said.

The incident, which left all the six men injured, sent shock waves across the local fishing villages.

One of the injured identified as Murugan had three of his fingers severed by the assailants who the affected fishermen claimed were from Sri Lanka, said police.

The fishermen hailing from Nambiar Nagar put out to the sea on February 14 and while they were fishing southeast of Point Calimere, some unidentified men who came in four boats surrounded their vessel and mounted an attack on them.

Murugan, who attempted to shield himself from the attack on Wednesday night, had three of his fingers cut by the attackers, police said when contacted.

The assailants robbed the fishermen of their GPS equipment, mobile phones, catch and fishing nets. The injured men were provided treatment initially at the Pushpavanam beach and later shifted to the Nagapattinam government hospital, police said.

Drawing the Union Minister's attention to the mid-sea incident, Annamalai said in a letter addressed to Jaishankar on Thursday that the Nagapattinam fishermen were "attacked mercilessly by a few people travelling in 4 Sri Lankan boats." "Thiru Murugan's fingers were chopped and the belongings of these fishermen worth Rs 5 lakh were robbed by those culprits. Sir, we request your good office's kind intervention on this matter and that the Sri Lankan government be nudged to identify people involved in this gruesome incident, the fishermen's belongings be retrieved and those involved in this attack be punished in the court of law," he said in the letter.

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