A mobile court of Rapid Action Battalion raided eight bird shops and three warehouses where they found the captive birds
A mobile court rescued over a hundred birds native to Bangladesh, including rare species of sparrow-kite, and arrested thirteen illegal bird traders from the capital’s Kaptan Bazar area on Monday.
A mobile court of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) raided eight bird shops and three warehouses where they found the captive birds, which include mynahs, parrots, munias, sparrows and kites.
The team rescued 112 munias, fourteen mynahs, eighteen parrots, three Sparrows and one kite from five shops around 2pm, reported Anwar Pasha, magistrate of the mobile court.
According to the Bangladesh Wildlife (Protection and Safety) Act -2012, trapping, selling, buying, consuming or caging of wild birds is a punishable offence.
The mobile court sentenced thirteen traders to various jail terms, ranging from three to six months and fined them different amounts.
“Many people rear such bird without realising it is illegal to keep them as pets in cages. We want to create awareness among the masses not to cage these species of birds. According to the law, offenders can be imprisoned for a maximum of one and a half years,” the magistrate said.
“A group of people have been collecting these birds from the Chittagong Hill Tract areas and selling them in the city. We are trying to catch them,” he added.
On April 21, another mobile court recovered 246 native birds from various shops at a weekly birds’ market. A dozen people were jailed and the birds were set free.
