Assam: Miscreants Poison Fishery, Causes Death of Hundreds of Fishes

JAMUGURIHAT: In a rather unbelievable incident, unidentified miscreants poisoned a private fishery. The incident took place in the Dhalaibeel Number 1 Borpothar village of Jamugurihat in the Sonitpur district of the state.

According to local people, the fishery was created under the Amrit Sarobar Scheme of the government for reading fish. Few unemployed local youth had come together for this project to make a living for themselves. But this incident has left the youth as well the rest of the local people very angry and they are working towards finding those responsible for the same.

The local villagers have expressed their doubts that the miscreants belonged to other villages and were jealous of the development of the local boys through their fisheries.

Previously, the detection of poisonous formalin in fishes led to the increase in the demand for local fishes. The experts of the Zoology Department of Gauhati University, Fishery College located at Raha, and officials of the State Food Safety Department came out with confirmed reports that fish samples they had collected from various districts in the State had formalin in them. With this revelation, the next step the State Government will take to tackle the menace is quite significant. Addressing the media at the Gauhati University campus, experts from the two educational institutions and representatives from the State Food Safety Department made it clear that GU experts found formalin in seven of the ten samples they had collected. The experts at the university collected seven of the ten samples from various fish markets in Gauhati and three from fish markets in the Nagaon district.

The experts said that the Fishery College collected seven samples and sent them to the Central Marine Fish Research Institute located at Kohi for testing. The institute found formalin in all seven samples. The Food Safety Department collected as many as 86 samples and found formalin only in ten fish samples. The officials of the department said that they are keeping a close watch on fish markets. They, however, said that they had no information as to where traders use formalin to preserve fish. The officials said that guilty would face imprisonment up to imprisonment of five years. The officials further said that they would send testing kits to all district food safety units to check for the menace.

Also Read: Gauhati University, Fishery College, Food Safety Department confirm formalin in fish

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