The Dhaka Metropolitan Detective Branch (DB) police have arrested one person over the theft of three endangered ring-tailed lemurs from Gazipur Safari Park, and recovered one of the lemurs.

Muhammad Talebur Rahman, deputy commissioner (DC) of the DMP's Media and Public Relations Division, gave the information on Saturday, 19 April.

He said that between 11pm on 23 March and 5.30am on 24 March, the net of the enclosure called Lamchita Ghar-1 at Gazipur Safari Park was cut and two male and one female ring-tailed lemur, a globally endangered species, were stolen. A case was filed at Sreepur police station in Gazipur on a complaint from the park authorities.

DC Talebur Rahman said that at the request of the Ministry of Environment and Forest, and on the instructions of senior police authorities, DB police began investigating the theft seriously. With the help of information from other government offices, a raid on the Akanda house at Darihamipur in Jamalpur Sadar police station area on Friday, 18 April, led to the arrest of Md Delowar Hossain Tawsif, 22, who is involved in the theft.

Following his interrogation and analysis of other information, the male ring-tailed lemur was recovered in a cage from a secluded spot next to Shyambazar mosque at Sadarghat in Dhaka on Friday night. The Forest Department's Wildlife Crime Control Unit has been informed.

Legal action against the arrested Delowar Hossain is under way, and efforts to recover the other two lemurs and arrest the other accused are continuing, the DMP official said.

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