Pakistan has arrested 74 Indian fishermen and seized their 13 trawlers, taking to 105 the number of fishermen from India held in less than a week.
Pakistan has arrested 74 Indian fishermen and seized their 13 trawlers for allegedly fishing in its territorial waters, taking to 105 the number of fishermen from India held in less than a week.
The Maritime Security Agency (MSA) boats “intercepted and arrested the Indian fishermen on Tuesday night while they were fishing in our waters,” Mohammad Aslam, an official of the Docks police, said on Wednesday.
The MSA handed over the fishermen and their vessels to the Docks police after arresting them, he said. The fishermen belong to Gujarat.
Pakistani authorities had earlier at the weekend arrested 31 Indian fishermen and seized five boats.
“We have repeatedly warned them (Indian fishermen) not to stray into our waters but some of them still come in to get big catches,” MSA spokesman Lt Commander Tanveer Shahid said.
“The Indian fishermen were caught fishing 75 nautical miles inside Pakistan’s territorial waters,” he said.
Manish Lodhari, the secretary of Gujarat unit of National Fish Workers Forum, said some fishermen might have crossed into Pak area. He discounted the possibility of any intrusion by the Pak MSA into Indian territory, saying “it is not possible as our coast guards keep a watchful eye on movements in Indian waters.”
Lodhari said some boats have modern equipments like GPS and others that could warn fishermen against crossing the limit of Indian waters, but most of the boats lack such facilities. “If the state government’s implements its programme to equip all boats with such equipments at a cost of Rs150 crore, such incidents can be avoided.”
With the latest arrest and seizures, the figure of Indian boats and fishermen in Pak custody has reached 413 and 530 respectively.
Pakistan and India frequently arrest poor fishermen but in the last one year both countries have released hundreds of them as a goodwill gesture and to promote peace process between the two nations.
However, Saram Burney of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust, who has played a major role in arranging the release of Indian fishermen, said there were still many more languishing in Pakistani jails.
With agency inputs from Karachi
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