The Bangladesh Coast Guard seized jatka (juvenile hilsa) and illegal shrimp fry worth about Tk 2 crore in a raid near the Kanchpur bridge in Sonargaon upazila, Narayanganj. The operation ran from the night of Saturday 18 April 2026 to Sunday morning, and two trucks yielded 2,200 kg of jatka and 3 crore 70 lakh shrimp fry. Jagonews24 reported the seizure on 20 April.
An overnight search under the Kanchpur bridge
The Coast Guard's media officer, Lieutenant Commander Sabbir Alam Sujon, confirmed the seizure to Jagonews24. Acting on a tip-off, he said, Coast Guard Composite Station Pagla ran a special operation under the Kanchpur bridge from 2am on Saturday night to 6am on Sunday.
Two suspicious trucks travelling from Noakhali to Khulna were searched. They were carrying 2,200 kg of jatka and 3 crore 70 lakh pieces of illegal shrimp fry. By the Coast Guard's own estimate, the seized fish and fry were worth about Tk 2 crore 85 thousand.
The Bangladesh Coast Guard is a force under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Parliament passed the Coast Guard Act in September 1994, and the force formally came into being on 14 February 1995. Fishery protection and the prevention of smuggling and trafficking are among its main duties.
Why catching and moving jatka is banned
Jatka are young hilsa, the small fish that grow on after the eggs hatch. The hilsa is Bangladesh's national fish. UNB and The Business Standard, reporting ministry figures on 6 April 2026, said the country produced 500,000 metric tons of hilsa in the 2024-25 fiscal year.
According to the same reports, Bangladesh has six hilsa sanctuaries, and catching, transporting and selling jatka is completely banned every year from 1 November to 30 June. The Sonargaon raid therefore fell inside the ban period, when carrying jatka by truck is prohibited.
The fry go back into the Buriganga
Sujon said the seized shrimp fry were released into the Buriganga river in the presence of Narayanganj Sadar upazila senior fisheries officer Md Asaduzzaman Asad and office assistant Kawsar Ahmed. The truck drivers and their helpers were let go with their trucks after signing written undertakings.
The government has long restricted the taking of shrimp fry from the wild. The environmental news site Mongabay reported in January 2024 that fishing in coastal areas with set bag nets (behundi jal), push nets used to collect shrimp fry and other destructive gear had been banned, to ease pressure on marine fish and manage the resource sustainably.
Photo: Fahad Faisal / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sources: Jagonews24, UNB, The Business Standard, Mongabay, Wikipedia (Bangladesh Coast Guard, Ilish)
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