Mobile courts in Rajbari handed jail terms and fines of various lengths to 21 fishermen for catching hilsa in the Padma in defiance of the government ban. Rajbari District Fisheries Officer Md Mahbub Ul Haque confirmed the figures at around 3pm on Tuesday, 21 October 2025. According to him, the drives of the previous 24 hours seized 143kg of hilsa and 383,000 metres of current net, with an estimated market value of about Tk 74.5 lakh.
Nine drives and five mobile courts in 24 hours
The district fisheries officer said that over those 24 hours the district and upazila administrations, fisheries officials and staff and law enforcers ran nine drives and five mobile courts on the Padma. A total of 21 fishermen were detained, and the mobile courts then sentenced them to jail terms and fines of various lengths.
The information he gave did not say how long each jail term was or how much each fine came to, and the names of the sentenced fishermen were not made public.
4 to 25 October: 22 days to protect mother hilsa
The drives took place during the government's 22-day ban to protect mother hilsa. At a press conference on 29 September 2025, the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock announced that catching, transporting, storing, marketing, buying, selling and exchanging hilsa would be banned across the country from 4 to 25 October, so that mature fish could spawn safely in the peak breeding season. Fishing for hilsa was prohibited in rivers, coastal areas, estuaries and the sea alike. The Daily Star reported that the ministry's notification had been issued on 24 September.
The Department of Fisheries said the period was set in consultation with the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI), other organisations and fishermen, so that it covered both the full moon and the new moon of the Bangla month of Ashwin, when breeding peaks.
According to The Business Standard on 3 October, the Department of Fisheries formed monitoring teams at divisional and upazila levels to enforce the ban through mobile courts and field operations, with daily reports to a central control room. The Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Border Guard Bangladesh, police, the Rapid Action Battalion and local administrations were to coordinate the enforcement.
Support for fishermen and the previous year's figures
The ministry said 620,140 fishing families in 165 upazilas of 37 districts would receive 25kg of rice each under the VGF programme during the ban. By the ministry's account, the 22-day campaign of 2024 had seized 54.86 tonnes of hilsa, destroyed 612.11 lakh metres of nets and collected Tk 75.27 lakh in fines through 2,169 mobile courts and 9,813 raids.
BFRI research showed that the 2024 ban allowed 52.5 percent of mother hilsa to lay eggs, adding an estimated 44,250 crore jatka (young hilsa) to the stock. The hilsa is Bangladesh's national fish.
Rajbari is a district of Dhaka Division, bordered by Pabna to the north and Manikganj to the east. Its land is mainly alluvium laid down by the Padma, and the Garai, Chandana and Harai are among the other rivers that run through it.
Photo: Shahnoor Habib Munmun / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Sources: Jagonews24, The Business Standard, The Daily Star, Wikipedia
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