Forty fishermen living in Indian jail for 7 months

Hectic liaison going on to free them
Forty fishermen and crews from Barguna and Chittagong districts have been passing painful days in Indian jail since October 2008 on the charge of alleged trespassing and crossing international boundary line. Rattan Molla, Owner of FB Shajahan-2, Anwar Haji, Owner of FB Shukkur, Golam Mustafa Chowdhury, President of Barguna district trawler owners association and relatives of the victims admitted the fact.
They said that they were keeping contact with the Indian fish merchants and Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Calcutta, India through different ways and spending huge money to bring back the crews and trawler to Bangladesh. Verification reports and the identification of names and addresses of the detained fishermen have already been completed.
South Asia Desk-1 of Bangladesh Foreign Ministry directed the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission office over fax on December 2, 2008 to take step in this matter. But no positive result has been found in last seven months, said relatives, trawlers, owners and association leaders.
Family members of the victimized poor fishermen now starving and their children became bound to end educational life in absence of almost only earning member of the family, they said.
Family members and leaders of the Barguna district fishing trawler association sources said 17 Bangladeshi fishermen on board of FB Shahjahan-2 fishing trawler crossed the boundary line after chased by the storm on October 10, 2008.
Indian coast guards detained them at Orissaya coast and handed over them to Pardia police station under Jagatsingpur district of the state and court sent them to Khandapara jail.
They ill fatted fishermen are Alamgir,44,Anwar Hossain, 33, Miraj,17, Bachchu,37, Milon,18, Zakir,26, Abul Kalam, 35, Sogir,29,Shahi Bhuiya,38, Qauyyum,36, Shahid,27, Halim,26, Alamin,25, Miraj,28, Badal,35, Mustafa,50 and Yunus,30 of Barguna Sadar and Patharghata upazila.
The other 23 crews on board of FB Shukkur, fishing trawler, are being detained in the said jail for same reason. They are Subidhan Majhi,28, Siddik,24, Swapan,38, Hari Bondhu,40, Judhisthir, 32, Kali Shangkar,28, Sujit,25, Jamir,31, Nurul Amin,28, Latif, 27, Ranjit, 29, Yasin,25, Mohammad Hossain,33, Mahbub Alam, 33, Safi Alam, 24, Sakebullah, 31, Mizanur Rahman, 20, Reazul Karim,28, Kaiser,20, Diku Das,37, Bivu Ranjan,35, Sidam,40 and Abul Kasem from Chittagong district.

Courtesy of The Bangladesh Today