The police in Udalguri district of northern Assam arrested three officials of a municipal board in connection with the killing of more than 250 hatchlings and fledglings of egrets and cormorants on June 24.
The trio was sent to 14-day judicial custody on Thursday on the basis of a case filed by the Forest Department under relevant sections of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972.
“The three arrested includes Santanu Das, executive officer of Tangla Municipal Board who issued the order to cut the bamboo groves where the birds were nesting,” Forester Mrinmoy Hazarika told The Hindu .
The other two are junior engineer Sadananda Saharia, who carried out the order, and Milan Sangma, a fourth-grade employee.
On June 8, Mr. Das had issued a notice to five residents of Tangla’s Ward Number 1 saying their neighbours were worried that COVID-19 spread from the droppings of the birds nesting on the bamboo groves on their plots. “You are thereby asked to cut down the bamboo groves for a cleaner, healthier surrounding,” the notice read.
The Board sent some workers to chop a few groves, killing more than 250 chicks of cattle egrets, little egrets and cormorants, before wildlife activists could intervene.
