Twenty-seven fishermen have been detained in Chandpur for catching mother hilsa in defiance of the ban. They were detained in several drives on the Padma and Meghna on the afternoon of Saturday (2 November).

Sources said drives were run in Bahariya, Anandabazar, Safarmali Bazar, Kanudi Ghat, Lalpur, Amirabad and Rajrajeshwar in Sadar upazila, and in Char Umed and Borochar in Matlab Uttar upazila. The 27 fishermen were detained with their boats.

Cases were filed against 20 of them: an officer of Chandpur river police station filed at Chandpur Sadar police station, and an officer of Mohanpur river police outpost filed at Matlab Uttar police station. The remaining seven were sentenced to various prison terms by executive magistrate Md Zakaria Hossain through a mobile court.

Two lakh metres of illegal net was recovered in the drives, seized both from the river, where it had been set, and from boats in the fishermen's possession.

Present during the drives were Md Abdur Rahman, deputy secretary of the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock; Syed Moshfiqur Rahman, superintendent of police (SP) for the Chandpur river region; Md Golam Mehedi Hasan, Chandpur district fisheries officer; Md Zakaria Hossain, executive magistrate at the deputy commissioner's office; assistant superintendent of police Imtiaz Ahmed (PPM); and H M Iqbal Hossain, officer-in-charge (OC) of Sadar river police station, among others.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.