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Monday, May 2, 2011

Indian Coast Guard apprehends 9 Myanmarese Poachers

Port Blair, May 1 :Indian Coast Guard Ship Aruna Asaf Ali apprehended nine more Myanmarese poachers along with one mechanised boat from Andaman sea near Indo-Myanmar maritime border last night.

"The Myanmarese poachers had violated the Indo-Myanmar maritime border and intruded into Andaman and Nicobar waters for illegally harvesting the rare and precious sub marine life," Commandant B K Singh, Coast Guard PRO, told UNI today.

ICGS Aruna Asaf Ali, deployed on a surveillance mission in the North Andaman sea, had observed a contact whose movement raised suspicion.

"The ship closed in on the boat and challenged it to stop for Coast Guard examination. The poachers on encountering the Coast Guard ship tried to evade apprehension by taking advantage of night and adopting high speed zigzag course heading into shallow waters," the Commandant added.

The poachers were chased by the ship and induced to surrender after firing warning shots.

On search it was discovered by ICGS Aruna Asaf Ali’s crew that the poachers were carrying equipment for extracting sea cucumber such as diving air bottles with deep diving lines, compressors along with sufficient provisions indicating that they intended to carry out sustained poaching in Andaman and Nicobar waters.

"All apprehended poachers and boat have been handed over to police at Diglipur for further interrogation and investigation. This apprehension by ICGS Aruna Asaf Ali comes close in the heel of the ship apprehending 18 Myanmarese poachers on 26 Apr 11. ICGS Aruna Asaf Ali under the command of Commandant Vijay Singh, has already apprehended 62 Myanmarese poachers along with six boats in the year 2011," the Coast Guard PRO added.
--UNI