Team Herald
CANACONA: A Delem resident while cleaning the mackerels bought from a vendor on Thursday in Canacona realised that the fish was having a plastic like coating. When he confronted the vendor, she disclosed that the mackerels where bought by her from Margao wholesale fish market.
Speaking to Herald, Samrat Bhagat, a social activist from Canacona taluka, said that his friend Dilkush Shet Desai, a resident of Delem in Canacona, had bought eight mackerels from Canacona fish market. While cleaning, he was surprised to find a plastic like coating on all of the mackerels bought by him. Sensing something fishy, he confronted the vendor only to be told that she bought the mackerels from Margao wholesale fish market: he had to eventually throw the fish out.
The news of mackerels with plastic like coating spread like wildfire as tech savvy Canconkars posted the news on various social media platforms.
“We had thought that the formalin in fish saga is over but the fish coming from the coast of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh is still suspected to be laced with the banned chemicals,” Bhagat said.
“The trawlers which go for deep sea fishing remain offshore for a minimum of six days and in no way the fish can remain fresh even if it is stored in crushed ice for so many days. The only option for the residents of Canacona is to buy locally caught fish,” Bhagat added.
It is instructive that ever since formalin was deducted in fish imported from States like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Goans are wary of purchasing fish and incidents like the present one cause severe concern over the safety of consuming fish.
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