Pak Marines capture 2 more boats, 12 fishermen off Gujarat coast

Porbandar: In its continued operation against Indian fishing boats since the apprehending of a Pakistani boat with 9 people aboard off Gujarat coast by the Indian coastguards five days ago, the Parkistan Marine Security Agency (PMSA) today again caught 2 boats with 12 fishermen on board near International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) in the Arabian sea off the Jakhau coast of Gujarat.

The Pak Marine had nabbed 19 boat with 104 fishermen on March 24 and 25 earlier on from the same area.

National Fish Workers Forum Secretary Manish Lodhari said that with today’s incident around 40 boats and 231 fishermen have been captured by Pakistan this month alone so far.
He said that the two boats caught today had ventured in to sea from Porbander while of the 19 nabbed earlier 15 were from Porbandar and 2 each from Okha and Mangrol.
Notably, in last around seven months (since August) Pak Marines have so far nabbed over 70 Indian boats with more than 500 Indian fishermen. Since January this year, over 50 boats and more than 200 fishermen have been nabbed.
On March 4, 13 Indian boats with over 70 fishermen and on March 5, 3 such boats with over 15 fishermen were caught
On January 26 amid the heightened coastal security on the occasion of the 68 the republic day also PMSA had captured around a dozen Indian boats with around 60 fishermen from the same area.
On December 28 the PMSA had captured 13 Indian boats with 65 fishermen from the same area. Prior to that on November 19 also the Pak Marines had abducted 6 Indian boats from the same area with around 36 fishermen on board. In September and August last year also PMSA had captured 6 and 1 boats respectively with 36 and 6 fishermen.

Interestingly, today’s capturing of Indian boats has taken place after March 24 apprehension of a Pakistani boat with 9 fishermen aboard all of them have been handed over to the Jakhau Marine police. No suspected items have been recovered from them.
Indian Coast Guard Ship C-408, a front line interceptor boat of Indian Coast Guard North West Region based at Jakhau apprehended Pakistani fishing boat “Karachi Pakistan” North West of Jakhau Port, in Indian waters at about 1509 hrs on March 24. The Pakistani fishing boat left base port Shah Bunder in Pakistan a day before.
DeshGujarat