Marine Police Seek Fishermen's Help

The Marine police made this call to the fishermen during an interaction held with their representatives from various coastal villages of the region.

PUDUCHERRY: The Marine wing of the  Puducherry police on Tuesday urged the representatives of the fishermen community to cooperate with them  to prevent human-trafficking and other illegal activities  on the Puducherry coastline.

They sought help to monitor the coastal areas to foil intrusion of anti-national forces.

The Marine police made this call to the fishermen during an interaction held with the fishermen community representatives from various coastal villages of the region.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Jagadesan Kannan said the fishermen have better knowledge of the sea than anybody, so they could help the police  maintain vigil against human-trafficking  and anti-national elements, who might use the sea for subversive activities like it happened in the Mumbai terror attack in 2008.

He said the meeting was arranged in the wake of the incident in which a boat had sailed to Australia without being noticed and the incident had resulted in a diplomatic issue between the two countries.

He said the Australian government has made it clear that they would not tolerate or house illegal migrants. “What happened should not be allowed to repeat”, he told the fishermen representatives.

Referring to the demand of issuing identity cards to all the fishermen residing in coastal areas, Jagadeesan said the distribution of biometric cards had run into a problem and  that the police would take the issue up with the Fisheries Department authorities so that all the  fisherfolk would  get ID Cards.

He also informed the representatives of fishermen about the introduction of a toll- free number 1093 for them so that the fishermen in the coastal areas can alert the Marine police on suspicious movement of people in the sea, mysterious sale of boats in their respective areas, etc.

He added that the fisheries authorities would also be asked to make some arrangements, like the installation of CCTVs to monitor the movement of fishing vessels

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