Bagerhat: A fisherman was killed and four others injured as a group of forest robbers swopped on a fishing trawler at Kachikhali under Sundarbans East Zone in Sharankhola upazila on Friday night.

The deceased was identified as Ismail Hossain, 30, son of Azgar Ali, a resident of Jaliaghata village in Patharghata upazila in Barguna district.

The robbers also abducted a fisherman from the trawler for ransom.

Officer-in-charge of Patharghata Police Station Ziaul Hoque said a group of six fishermen were fishing at Kachikhali on Friday night.

Suddenly, the fishermen noticed that another trawler without any light on its board was coming towards them around 8:30pm.

As the fishermen started to flee from that place, the robbers fired several rounds of bullets at the fishermen, leaving Ismail dead on the spot.

The robbers, however, managed to confine the other fishermen and beat up five of them.

Later, they abducted injured fisherman Riaz, looted huge amount of fishes from the trawler and fled from the scene.

The four injured fishermen returned to Patharghata carrying the body of Ismail on Saturday noon.

Several teams of the coast guards have launched simultaneous drives to arrest the forest robbers and rescue the abducted fisherman, said station commander of Patharghata Coast Guard.