A Sri Lankan court sentenced five Tamil Nadu fishermen to death on Thursday on drug trafficking charges.
The Indian government is to appeal the judgement, through legal channels as well as political channels, reports the Hindustan Times.
"India's High Commission in Colombo will appeal to higher court through a lawyer against the judgement by the lower court against these five Indian fishermen," India's External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin told a press conference on Friday.
"Since then this court case has been going through the Sri Lankan judicial process. Now that a lower court has given its judgement, we intend through our High Commission to appeal against this judgement," Akbaruddin told Times Now.
"Simultaneously, we have been pursuing with the Sri Lankan government our view, that we feel these fishermen are not guilty, because we have done our due diligence on our side, and we find that they are innocent," he added.
"But that is a separate process that we are pursuing. We are also doing our best to ensure that these fishermen are proved innocent and that these fishermen can return to India."
The men were convicted in November 2011 by Colombo High Court, after being arrested by the Sri Lankan navy off the Jaffna coast and accused of trafficking heroin. Three Sri Lankan citizens have also been sentenced to death.
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