The forest department has arrested two sellers with 12 turtles in Chattogram after its staff posed as buyers. They were arrested on the afternoon of 17 January at the west bank of Laldighi, under the city's Kotwali police station.

The arrested are Adesh Barua (55), son of the late Sukanda Bikash Barua, and Ripu Barua (37), son of the late Salinda Barua, both from Uttar Nalbila village of Kalamarchhara in Maheshkhali, Cox's Bazar. They were produced in court the same afternoon.

The rescued turtles belong to a species known in Bengali as sundi, also called chita kachhim locally, according to Muhammad Ismail Hossain, wildlife ranger of the Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation Division, Chattogram.

He told Jagonews that catching, killing, buying or selling any species of turtle is completely banned under the wildlife conservation law. But on reports that turtles were regularly sold around Laldighi, two forest department staff went there posing as buyers on Tuesday. The sellers said they would deliver the turtles on Wednesday. When the team went back on Wednesday afternoon, two members of the ring were arrested while handing over the turtles.

He said a case was filed against them under sections 34(b) and 41 of the Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.