He made this request commencing the “Wewak Samanga Gamak” program in the Landing site 86 in Kanthale. Nearly 200 fishers were given fishing gear and fisheries infrastructure development project was also initiated centering the landing site.

Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Mahinda Amaraweera addressing the event mentioned that he has informed the fishermen to refrain from catching fish using explosives such as dynamite. Fish is a resource to the country and due to the dynamite fishing in the sea bed the resource of fish is at the risk of going extinct.

The main reason for fish in Sri Lankan waters going extinct is the illegal fishing methods adopted by certain fishers. Some use not only dynamite but the explosives such as C4 which was used by terrorists to huge bomb blasts during the past war times. Most of the blast fishing are reported from Eastern province. During the year 2015, 8 kg of C4 had been arrested along with TNT, dynamite, Gelignite and detonators.

In blast fishing fish die in massive numbers regardless of their size and recently thousands of fish had washed up on shore in Batticaloa due to blast fishing.

Therefore the Minister requested the police and the security forces to arrest all the blast fishers. At the same time it should be investigated how these explosives came in to the possession of fishers. These explosives are prohibited to be sold in the market and therefore the persons trading these explosives shall also be arrested, said the Minister.