<i>Lagoons of deadly fishes </i>
It was 3:00pm on Monday. A man and a woman were busy catching fish in a lagoon of the waste treatment plant in Pagla of Narayanganj. The lagoon was just next to another lagoon where poison was applied on August 30 to kill the fish in it as they were contaminated with heavy metals.
Noticing The Daily Star correspondent the two packed up their gear and started to flee with a bag half full of fish. They took the fish to their home half a kilometre away.
"I am not a fisherman… I am just catching fish which I eat regularly," claimed Dulal, who was catching fish along with his wife.
Like Dulal about 30 people of the area are involved in catching the deadly fish a major portion of the catch end up at different kitchen markets, said locals.
The Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) in association with the department of fisheries applied chemicals in two of the 16 lagoons of the plant to kill the fish as part of their yearly drive. The dead fish were later collected and burned.
"Wasa will carry out another drive soon and permission to kill fish in the other lagoons has been sought at the Wasa head office Monday," said Executive Engineer of Wasa Kamrul Hossain Bhuiyan. Wasa killed the fish of the 16 lagoons in July last year, said another official.
The drive was not very successful as the number of fish in the lagoons grew within a short period of time and fishing started again. There is a nexus of security guards and fishermen, locals said.
A shopkeeper in the area told The Daily Star that around 30 people of the area, including areas surrounding Dhaka Match Factory, Nichandapur and Kadamtali, are involved in catching fish in the lagoons and selling them in Pagla kitchen market, Match Factory kitchen market and Jatrabari kitchen market.
A section of ansars of Wasa, who are supposed to prevent fishing in the lagoons, allows people to catch fish at night taking Tk 100 to Tk 200 bribe, he said.
One person can catch at least 15kg fish a night, said Basir, a resident of Rasulpur.
Executive Engineer Kamrul refuted the allegation of ansars' involvement. "It is a false allegation… the 20 ansars deployed to prevent fishing round the clock are doing their best. Sometimes it is not possible to guard the entire area with a few ansars," he said.
"We have submitted a proposal to build proper boundary walls and when the walls are done we will be able to prevent fishing," he said.
Wasa banned fishing and fish cultivation in the lagoons around 10 years ago as the fish of the lagoons contained too much metal. The lagoons contain human wastes and industrial wastes, said an official of Wasa.
Fish of the lagoons grow eating heavy metals like chromium, cadmium, arsenic, lead, nickel and mercury and they cannot expel these substances, said Prof ABM Faroque of department of pharmaceutical technology of Dhaka University.
"Heavy metals are very harmful for human body and if we eat the fish of the lagoons, the metals enter our bodies and remain there for years," he said.
Heavy metals can stay in human bodies between 8-10 years and sometimes even longer. This can damage the kidneys and cause lever cirrhosis and cancer, he said.
The authorities concerned should kill the fish every three months, he suggested.
Fish cultivation in the lagoons was started by one Pintu, son of a Wasa staffer, in 1985. The practice went on, abetted by a number of influential people in the area, till the end of the four-party alliance government's tenure, said a shopkeeper of the area.
Fish breed in the lagoons naturally now. They are mostly Telapia fish which grow very fast, he said.
Executive Engineer Kamrul said it is not possible to kill all the fish in the lagoons; some always survive and start breeding again.
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