Pak national held at airport with 1,000 rare birds
Customs officials yesterday seized around 1,000 birds, mostly protected species, from a Pakistani at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the capital.
The immigration police arrested Ahmmed Shaikh Wahid, 29, around 2:00pm. He was trying to smuggle the birds in four cages packed in cartons to Pakistan, said a customs official.
“Of them, 400 were hilly mynahs and 600 were blossom-headed parakeets, spotted munia and bazrigars,” customs official Mohammad Mostafa Zamal told The Daily Star yesterday evening. A good number of the birds, however, were dead.
He said the birdcages were boarded on flight PK-267 of Pakistan International Airlines scheduled to take off at 2:30pm.
Wahid who hails from Karachi crossed the heavy scanning machine of customs with the birdcages. He had a veterinary certificate from Dhaka City Corporation, which customs official Zamal thinks is fake.
However, following a tip-off, customs officials seized the birds from the aircraft.
Quoting the arrestee, range officer of the forest department Fazlul Haq said Ahmmed Shaikh Wahid collected the birds from another Pakistani citizen Faruk who is in Dhaka now.
The birds were handed over to Fazlul Haq who said last night the birds would be sent to the Dulhazra Safari Park in Cox’s Bazar.
“The arrestee did not admit that he was smuggling birds. He said he did not know the legal restrictions on catching those birds,” Fazlul Haq said.
He said a case was filed against the Pakistani citizen under Wildlife Preservation Act 1974. Under the act, catching such birds is a punishable offence.
According to Fazlul Haq the price of a pair of these birds range between Tk 400 and Tk 10,000.
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