Trade of banned avian species continues unabated, nine bird smugglers arrested

Kolkata: State Forest department and Wild Life Crime Control Bureau jointly carried out a raid at Galif Street, after the officials got a tip off that several endangered species of birds were being sold by a few persons.

A large number of birds were recovered during the raid and nine persons are arrested by the officials of forest department and wildlife crime control agency.

Forest officials said they had information on Saturday that a few bird smugglers were about to sell-off several endangered species of birds at the animal market on Galif Street. Immediately, the information was passed on to the Wild Life Crime Control Bureau officials. Subsequently, a joint team was formed and a plan was hatched to nab the bird smugglers.

On Sunday morning, the joint team of forest department and wildlife crime control agency went to Galif Street and kept a watch in the area.

After few hours, the officials noticed a few persons were waiting for prospected buyers with multiple cages tightly packed with various bird species.

The cages were covered with cloth. Some officials approached them as prospected buyers and found that they were selling Parakeets, which are commonly known as tiya in Bengali. Apart from Parakeets, the officials found they had one Indian Koyel and one hill Moyna.

While, a section of officials got busy with the four accused persons at a specific spot on Galif Street, the other part of the joint team discovered

that a few persons were selling Parakeets within a few metres.

Later, these four accused persons accused persons were arrested by the forest and wildlife officials

When the officials of forest department and wildlife crime control agency were trying to know about the plans of bird smugglers posing as buyers, some of them got suspicious and tried to escape and but the officials had made a foolproof strategy to arrest them. The bird smugglers failed to escape as the officials had surrounded the area.

Five persons were nabbed from another spot and 11 Parakeets were seized from their possession. A source informed that the se birds could have died any moment due to suffocation as the accused persons had stashed them tightly in the cages.

The accused persons and the birds have been taken to the office of the Forest Department in Salt Lake.

The nine arrested will be forwarded to the concerned court on Monday with an appeal for Forest department custody.

The department will also appeal for the release of the seized birds before the court.

The seized birds will be kept under observation at the forest department facility in Salt Lake to check if the avian species have developed any health problems. According to the law, if the accused persons get convicted, they may get sentenced to maximum seven years in jail.