Staff Correspondent

Two Bangladesh Coast Guards (Abhijit-3 and Jhar-3) and four Bangladesh Navys (FB Joy Jagannath-2, FB Basanti, FB Abhijit and FB Narayan) seized a total of six Indian fishing boats along with 95 fishermen while they were illegally fishing in Bangladeshi waters adjacent to the Bangladesh-India international maritime boundary.

On the other hand, on September 12, when the Bangladeshi fishing boat FB Kaushik sank in bad weather, the Indian Coast Guard rescued 12 fishermen and took them to Haldia Port in India. In addition, on December 9, 2024, the Indian Coast Guard seized 2 Bangladeshi fishing trawlers (FB Laila-02 and FB Meghna-5) along with 78 fishermen on charges of fishing in Indian waters in the area adjacent to the Bangladesh-India international maritime boundary.

Later, a decision was taken to exchange the detained fishermen through bilateral agreement at the initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Then, the responsibility of completing the transfer/acceptance of the detained fishermen was assigned to the Bangladesh Coast Guard as per the instructions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In continuation of this, on Sunday, at approximately 5 pm, 95 Indian fishermen detained in Bangladesh were handed over to the Indian Coast Guard along with 6 boats at the Bangladesh-India International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) under the supervision of the Bangladesh Coast Guard. At the same time, the Bangladesh Coast Guard received 90 Bangladeshi fishermen detained/sheltered in India along with 2 boats from the Indian Coast Guard.

The Bangladeshi fishermen were handed over to their relatives along with their boats in Patenga, Chittagong at 10 am on Tuesday.