A court in Barasat on Saturday sentenced a North 24-Parganas resident to three years of rigorous imprisonment for smuggling a red-breasted parakeet and nine rose-breasted parakeets, both of which are protected under the Indian wildlife law.
Chief judicial magistrate Saibal Dutta imposed a fine of ₹10,000 on Bapi Majumdar 35, a resident of Joygachi village in Habra.
Forest department officers claimed that the conviction in a wildlife case was quite rare in south Bengal and was probably the first one.
According to forest department sources in Barasat, Bapi was caught during a raid conducted on December 29 last year by officers of the Barasat social forestry (SF) range in Guma, where both the red-breasted and rose-breasted parakeets were recovered.
The red-breasted parakeet is protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, which provides the highest level of legal protection to endangered species. Any act of hunting, poaching, trading or causing harm to animals listed in this category is treated as a serious offence and attracts the harshest penalties.
The rose-breasted parakeet, though not as critically protected, is listed under Schedule 2 of the same Act and is also safeguarded against exploitation.
“We had specific information and conducted a raid in Guma when the protected birds were recovered. We have long been making people aware of the threat smuggling poses to protected birds. But people remained incorrigible. So we lodged a specific police complaint under relevant sections of the Wildlife Protection Act,” said Dayal Chakraborty, range officer of the Barasat SF range.
The court denied bail to the accused and ordered his continued custody. According to the forest officers, the accused remained in judicial custody for 189 days throughout the trial.
“This is quite a significant thing that the accused remained in custody during the last 189 days and faced the trial and was eventually convicted. To see the result in such a manner in south Bengal is probably for the first time, a major exception,” added Chakraborty.