A forest patrolling team on Thursday morning arrested 14 persons for allegedly fishing in the prohibited Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary area in Kendrapada district. The team also seized two trawlers and two quintals of fish from them.Notably, fishing in the sanctuary has been prohibited for a period of seven months from November 1 as endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles come to the beach here for nesting during the period.
According to Gahirmatha Forest Ranger Subrat Kumar Patra, the sea patrolling team came across a Paradip-based fishing trawler, ‘Maa Subhadrao’, and a Kasafala-based trawler, ‘Debakanya-III catching fish at the ‘No Fishing Zone’ near Madali Mouth in the wee hours of Thursday. They soon arrested all crew members and seized the trawlers along with fish.
The arrested were identified as Dushmant Behera, Sadhu Charan Behera, Bimalkant Behera, Mahanta Swain and Kalalakanta Mallick, Narendra Majhi, Ramakanta Majhi, Kailash Behera, Basant Jena, Chhotray Soren, Jagabandhu Majhi, Suman Majhi, Sukumar Majhi and Ajay Mandal. They belong to Kendrapada, Bhadrak and Balesore districts, Patra informed.
The arrested fishermen were produced before the JMFC Court of Rajnagar and remanded into jail custody after their bail pleas were rejected. With this, the number of seized fishing trawlers went up to 13 and the number of arrested fishermen increased to 92.