CHENNAI: Charging that DMK president M Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi courting arrest on February 16 has trivialised the grave problem being faced everyday by Tamil Nadu fishermen, AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa on Thursday demanded stronger steps by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to end the miseries of fishermen.

“The PM should himself pick up the phone and speak to Mahinda Rajapaksa and tell him if the atrocities against Indian fishermen are not stopped forthwith, Lanka will have to face the consequences,” Jayalalithaa said in a statement here.

“Mere despatching of letters from Chennai to Delhi or sending messengers from Delhi to Colombo will not be of any use. The sequence of events clearly shows that the UPA government does not care about the letters Karunanidhi keeps despatching. And the Sri Lankan government does not care about India’s warning. Stronger steps are required to put an end to the fishermen’s problems,” Jayalalithaa said.

On the other steps to make Sri Lanka mend its ways, Jayalalithaa said: “India should stop sending its Sukhoi aircraft for display at the 16th anniversary of the Sri Lankan Air Fair.

The Kachatheevu agreement has to be abrogated and the island should be brought back into the Indian map to India’s territorial waters to its original distance.

India’s Naval presence off the TN coast has to be stepped up.”

She dismissed the DMK’s protest over the arrest of fishermen on Wednesday, and the ‘arrest’ of Kanimozhi as diabolical.

The people of TN can see through the DMK’s charades on this issue, she said and observed that around 540 fishermen had lost their lives in attacks by Lankan Navy, the Express News Service reported today.