A court has jailed 39 fishermen for various terms for catching hilsa in the Rajbari stretch of the Padma in defiance of the ban. Some 53 kg of hilsa and 1,28,000 metres of net were seized over the past 24 hours.

The fishermen were detained in drives on the Padma up to 8pm on Saturday (26 October).

A mobile court detained the 39 fishermen and later sentenced them to jail terms of different lengths and fined them Tk 6,000. Of them, 33 were held on the Padma in Rajbari Sadar and six in Pangsha. The seized hilsa was given to orphanages and the nets were burnt on the riverbank.

Rajbari Sadar upazila fisheries officer Mostafa-Al-Rajib said they are trying to make the hilsa conservation drive as successful as possible. Most of the detained fishermen are from the Pabna area.

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