Seven fishermen from Kanyakumari district who were working in Qatar were detained by the customs officials at Dubai on Friday. It is alleged that they could have been arrested for crossing the international fishing borders. The families have appealed to the government to intervene for their early release. The detained include four of a family. They were identified as M Jerome, 55, of Kurumpanai, his brothers-in-law Johnson, 48, and Maria John, 53, and nephew G Jeniskhan, 24. The three others are S Sahaya Minu Stephen, 24, Ananth John Bosco, 30 and C Johnson, 47. Five of them are from Kurumpanai village and the two others from Colachel and Aazhithurai. Jerome had only recently come to his native for Christmas and went back to Qatar on January 2. According to Jerome’s family they came to know about the arrest through their elder son Surjith Jero, who is a civil engineer in Qatar. The fishermen had gone fishing in the boat ‘Al Belad’ owned by Jassim Ahmed J Ahmed on Wednesday. The family members said that they could have been fishing close to the international border but within Qatar’s boundary, when they were picked up by the customs personnel on Friday morning. The fishermen managed to share the information to Surjith through a phone belonging to a few locals at Dubai. “My father (Jerome), a fisherman has been working in Qatar for 25 years. He has been spending a major part of the year there and used to come home only for holidays. He knows the international maritime boundary of Qatar. He has never been caught all these years and we are sure he did not cross the border,” his son, Abith Jerome, 21, told TOI. President of International Fishermen Development Trust, P Justin Antony who is working on the release of these fishermen said that they have taken the issue to the notice of the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, Prime Minister’s Office, external affairs ministry and chief minister of Tamil Nadu on Saturday.