Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) has seized nine monitor lizards being smuggled to India from the Chauddagram border area of Cumilla. After the lizards were handed over to a forest officer on Saturday, 1 April, they were released into the forest.

Md Parvez Shamim, assistant director of the Cumilla-10 BGB battalion, confirmed this to Jago News on Saturday evening.

He said that on Friday afternoon, acting on a tip-off, a team from BGB's Chauddagram BOP led by Havildar Md Samidul Islam Sheikh raided Dhanmuri in the upazila's border area. Sensing the BGB's presence, the smugglers dropped two plastic sacks 20 yards inside Bangladesh from border pillar 2110 and fled into India. When the sacks were recovered and opened, they held nine monitor lizards of a rare species.

"Because monitor lizard skin is very valuable, there is a tendency to smuggle the animal from Bangladesh to India. The lizards were later handed over to Humayun Kabir, forest officer at Rajeshpur Eco Park," he said.

Humayun Kabir, the Rajeshpur Eco Park forest officer, said members of BGB's Chauddagram BOP handed over the lizards on Friday, and they were released into the Rajeshpur forest at noon on Saturday.

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