A 40-year-old Indian fisherman, Iqbal Bhatti, was killed in firing allegedly by the Pakistan Marine Security Agency (PMSA) off Gujarat coast on Friday morning.
“He was among the six people on board ‘Prem Sagar’ that had ventured into the sea from Okha. The firing was without provocation,” said Manish Lodhari, secretary of the National Fish Workers’ Forum.
Mr. Bhatti was a resident of Okha village near Dwarka.
A media statement by the Indian Coast Guard does not mention any agency of the neighbouring country. “Our probe is under way. At this juncture, we cannot conclude who fired upon the Indian boat,” a senior ICG official in Gujarat told The Hindu .
Unprecedented: Congress
Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat, termed the incident “despicable and unprecedented” while slamming the Narendra Modi government for “failing to secure the Gujarat coastline.”
