Forest personnel seized exotic wildlife including a kangaroo and blue parrots while being smuggled out from Mizoram, during a routine check at Cachar district in neighbouring Assam on Tuesday night.
A team of personnel of Cachar forest division intercepted a truck at Lailapur forest sub beat and seized a kangaroo from Australia, six blue Macao parrots, three tortoises and two capuchin monkeys from South America packed in plastic and carton boxes.
"The forest personnel were on a routine check of trucks passing through Lailapur to detect carrying of any illegal timber. However, one of the forest personnel detected obnoxious odours emanating from a truck. On being questioned, the driver replied that it was nothing but the foul smell from some rotten fruits. Not convinced with the trucker's reply, the forest personnel searched the vehicle and found the exotic animals," divisional forest officer of Cachar forest division, Sunnydeo Choudhary said in a statement.
Two persons, Narsimha Reddy and Navnath Tukaram Daigude have been detained. They told the forest personnel that the consignment was headed to Guwahati. "We are investigating to identfy from where these animals came and who were supposed to take. We suspect there is a network which smuggles such exotic animals from Myanmar for markets in rest of the country via Northeast," said a forest officer.
The seized animals have been kept at Assam State Zoo in Guwahati.
In March 2018, forest officials had seized a consignment of exotic animals including scorpions at Jorabat, on the outskirts of Guwahati.
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