Mangaluru: The fishing boat with eight fishermen onboard that went missing off the Goa coast is yet to be traced. Meanwhile, the search operations for the boat from Malpe Fisheries Harbour are on.

This boat, Suvarna Tribhuja, with the fishermen, had left Malpe fisheries harbour on December 13 for fishing. The last communication from this fishing boat was made on December 15.

At a meeting with the fishermen at Malpe Fisheries Harbour here on Tuesday, K. Raghupati Bhat, MLA, said that the Coast Guard, through its ships, had launched a search for this boat off Goa coast. He had already informed the departments concerned at the Centre, Goa, and also the Coast Guard, about the missing boat.

He had also called Union Minister for Programme Implementation and Statistics D.V. Sadananda Gowda and urged him to get helicopters to search for the missing boat in the sea and on the river banks close to the sea. Mr. Sadananda Gowda had agreed to this suggestion, Mr. Bhat said.

Satish Kundar, president of Malpe Fishermen Association, said that the representatives of the association had met Superintendent of Police Laxman Nimbargi and the Coastal Security Police and urged them to take immediate action in the matter. A team of four policemen from the Malpe Police Station left to Goa for search operations on December 24.

A team of four fishermen also left Malpe for Karwar on Tuesday. The team would coordinate with the Coastal Security Police at Karwar to participate in the search operations in Goa, Sindhudurg, Malvan and Ratnagiri areas. Mr. Bhat had told the association that besides two helicopters, the ships of Coast Guard were part of the search operations, he said.