Three Indian fishing boats seized, 17 crew members held

The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) on Friday seized three Indian fishing vessels and arrested 17 crew members for entering Pakistan’s territorial waters.

PMSA Spokesman Commander Wajid Nawaz Chaudhry said the agency’s aircrafts and speedboats participated in the operation, which was conducted near Pakistan’s maritime border in the Arabian Sea.

He said the arrested fishermen were first interrogated by PMSA officials before being handed over to the Docks police for further legal action. The latest arrests come after the release of 291 Indian fishermen in two batches over a period of 10 days from the last week of December 2017.

The first goodwill gesture – the release of 145 incarcerated fishermen from the Malir jail – had come on December 28, days after Pakistan allowed the mother and wife of arrested Indian spy Kalbhushan Jadhav to visit him.

After that, on January 7, another 146 Indian fishermen were released from the Malir jail. Prior to the release of the first batch on December 28, there was a sharp increase in the number of arrests and boat seizures with the start of the fishing season. As per official records, the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency had conducted five operations against Indian fishing vessels in a short span of 52 days.

Over that period, a total of 29 Indian fishing vessels were seized and 172 Indian crew members were apprehended. The first was reported on November 10 in which the PMSA seized nine fishing vessels and took into custody 55 crew members. That was followed by an operation on November 12, in which four Indian fishing boats were impounded and 23 fishermen were held.

PMSA reported a third operation on November 16, in which the agency seized four Indian fishing vessels and arrested 23 crew members, all Indian nationals. Similarly on December 14, seven Indian vessels were seized and 43 crew members were taken into custody.

The last one was on December 22 in which the PMSA seized five fishing vessels and arrested 28 crew members. However, the two countries had also released each other’s fishermen over the course of 2017, starting with Pakistan repatriating 219 Indian fishermen in January. After that, 18 Pakistani fishermen arrested in India had reached Karachi on March 4, which was followed by the release of 78 more Indian fishermen by Pakistan in July.