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Cachar's Lailapur that connects to Mizoram becomes the gateway for animal smuggling; Orangutans rescued

After drugs, contrabands and Burmese supari, the Assam-Mizoram border in Lailapur becomes a loophole in the animal smuggling racket. Today morning, what looks like two non-indigenous primates were found in two abandoned bags in Lailapur. This is the second such case in a week’s time where the police have recovered two vulnerable species of animals from the border. The two primates found today were later handed over to the Forest Department. 

This morning when the locals of the Lailapur area were on their way to work, two abandoned shopping bags drew their attention. Since the bag was huge, they became suspicious of it, but when they neared the bag, to their surprise found a cage inside each bag. This drew a lot of attention and people started to gather around to find what was inside the cages. What people thought to be just some different species of monkeys were actually non-indigenous chimpanzees. These bags were lying just near the highway connecting Assam and Mizoram. According to Police from the Lailapur Patrol Post, these bags might have been abandoned by some smugglers, who are now absconding.

Cachar SP, Numal Mahatta in this regard said, “Today morning two rare species of wild animals, suspected to be orangutans have been recovered near the Lailapur Naka check post under Dholai Police Station. These animals have now been kept at safety under the vigil of the Forest Department and the vet doctors. The criminals, in this case, are not yet known to us, but we are estimating that these animals were smuggled from Myanmar and were off to be sold to some international black markets”.

Speaking about this illegal trade, the APS Officer said, “Such vulnerable primates have heavy demand in the black market where the price of one such orangutan can go way high, up to 40 crores each. We have filed a case against this to find out who is behind this illegal racket”. The two primates will be taken to Guwahati State Zoo to keep them at safety they will be handed over to the experts from the State Zoo, who have arrived in Silchar today.

The Assam-Mizoram border is used as a corridor for such illegal animal trade which are mostly found in the jungles of South-East Asian Region. “Orangutans are found only in Indonesia and Malaysia and are listed as Critically Endangered on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species”, said Prof. Parthankar Choudhury, an Environmentalist and the Dean of E. P. Odum School of Ecology and Environmental Science.

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