GUWAHATI: A police station in Kamrup district of Assam seemed to have turned into a mini-zoo on Thursday after 41 “exotic” wild animals and birds were seized from two SUVs.
The animals included two kangaroos, 19 different types of primate species, including two suspected to be chimpanzees, two wild birds and 18 tortoises, Kamrup Superintendent of Police Hitesh Ch Roy told this newspaper.
The seizure, one of the biggest such recovery of trafficked animals in the state, was made at Rangiya city after the police took action based on intelligence inputs.
The consignment was coming from Mizoram-Myanmar border in two SUVs and was headed towards Siliguri in West Bengal, police said.
The vehicles, which bore Delhi registration numbers with Army stickers pasted on them, were intercepted by the police after they had traversed over 700 km through Mizoram, Meghalaya and Assam. Roy said the police are taking the help of forest officials to identify the seized species.
Two persons Raghu Singh (42), son of Suruli Ghosh of Thena, and Karthik (27), son of Chinaiasamyalagar, Vilipuram, both in Tamil Nadu have been detained.
“We are investigating the case,” Roy added.
There have been a few similar seizures of exotic animals made by the Assam Police over the past three years. In some of the cases, the vehicles transporting the animals were found to have travelled from Mizoram.
Naga group: Loyalty tax, not extortion
Nagaland saw the highest crime rate under ‘extortion and blackmailing’ in 2021, at 7.6% against the national average of 0.8%.
However, the state’s apex tribal group Naga Hoho said it is “loyalty tax” in Nagaland.
“We have many political (rebel) groups and they want loyalty tax for Naga national movement,” HK Zhimomi said, adding that there may be cases of extortion not related to the rebel groups.