Ducks being culled in Bamdebpur, Birbhum. Picture by Amit Datta

Jan. 16: A five-member “rapid response” team waited for four-and-a-half hours at Basoa village. Not one poultry owner turned up for the culling.

In elaborate, white protective gear, they sat on chairs with gunny bags lying empty by their side.

Local panchayat member Urmila Mal had refused to tell people to hand over their live birds for culling.

This was the picture in about 60 out of the 105 Birbhum villages where animal resources development teams camped through the day.

South Dinjapur did not have a different story to tell. There was no culling outside the state-owned farm where the bird flu outbreak was confirmed. Inside, “90 per cent of the 1,444 birds” had been culled.

Zakir Hussain, the chief of Birbhum’s Rampurhat block II panchayat samiti, said: “In some places, people were reluctant to hand over their birds. In others, they were ignorant about the operation.”

Sudarshan Bhattacharya, the vet leading the team at Bamdebpur, told villagers: “If you do not hand over the birds today, police will come and forcibly take them away. You won’t get any compensation.”

Only 10 birds had been culled in the village of around 600 families by 1pm.

In Calcutta, animal resources minister Anisur Rahman said 1,500 chickens were culled in Birbhum. Over 3.5 lakh have to be culled in Birbhum ultimately and around 30,000 in Balurghat, South Dinajpur.

“The culling was less today because there is no organised poultry in the affected areas. District magistrates met representatives of political parties and requested them to co-operate. It will be better tomorrow,” said Rahman.

Many villagers like Naresh Mal of Sherpur in Rampurhat block II, complained that they had not been informed about the culling.

Although buying and selling poultry have been banned in the affected areas, chickens were selling in bazaars today. “It was Makar Sankranti yesterday and I sold at Rs 70,” said Vijay Mal of Bamdebpur.

Duck meat usually costs Rs 100 a kilo and chicken Rs 60.

Md Bulu of Tentulia was expecting good business over the Muharram weekend.

In Balurghat town, chickens were available 150m from the district magistrate’s office, 2km from the afflicted farm.

In none of the districts was there any urgency to ask villagers to isolate chickens.

“We received the confirmation last evening. Everything could not be arranged everywhere. In many cases, the villagers had let their birds loose to feed on their own this morning and could not catch them for culling,” said Dilip Das, the animal resources director.

Sritanu Maity, the South Dinajpur deputy director, said: “We are not sitting idle. We need a day for the groundwork. We want to catch the chicken traders unawares.”

Tentulia resident Abdus Sayed said: “We are simply be-ing asked to hand over the birds. We don’t know why. Nobody has told us about the symptoms of bird flu in human beings and the protections we need.”

The lack of awareness was apparent even in the few who turned up for the culling. Unnati Mal of Bamdebpur carried her three ducks in bare hands.

The culling team broke the necks of each bird before putting them in the gunny bags. Villagers were given chits and told to collect their compensation from the panchayat office.

The residents of Parun village demanded the money at the culling site and refused to hand over their birds. Health secretary Kalyan Bagchi and district magistrate Tapan Kumar Som went there in the evening. Seven hundred birds were culled after that.