8 arrested on charges of illegal fishing | Bhubaneswar News
Kendrapada: Forest officials arrested eight marine fishermen on Saturday night in Gahirmatha marine sanctuary on the charges of illegally fishing.“We also seized seven trawling nets with 25kg of fish, a GPS and two VHFs from their fishing trawler,” Kapilendra Pradhan, forest range officer of the sanctuary, said.The arrested fishermen were identified as Narendra Majhi, Purosotam Jena, Bimbadhar Majhi, Bharat Jena, Rajesh Khatua, Ajay Majhi, Dushashan Tarei and Nandu Singh of Balasore district. They were booked under Sections 27, 29 and 31 of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. On Sunday, all the arrested fishermen were produced in court at Rajnagar where their bail applications were rejected and they were remanded in judicial custody.Marine fishermen have been directed not to fish within 20km from coastline in the sanctuary’s areas covering 1435 sqkm in the sea from Hukitola to Dhamara. Last year, forest officials had demarcated the sanctuary’s areas by putting 14 buoys.
