The killing of wildlife in Chunarughat, Habiganj, shows no sign of stopping. Villagers are now accused of beating to death a leopard cat, thinking it was a tiger. The Forest Department has filed a case against more than 100 people over the incident.

The case was filed with Chunarughat police station on Saturday night, January 22. Before this, a jackal had been killed.

According to the Forest Department and local sources, several people saw the leopard cat in a bush beside Kachua village in the upazila, and many spread word that it was a tiger cub. As the news spread, people chased the cat with sticks, eventually beat it to death and then celebrated. Forest officials went to the scene on hearing the news and took the body away.

Divisional forest officer Mohammad Rezaul Karim Chowdhury said many people also call it a fishing cat, but its real name is leopard cat. The rare animal is now close to extinction, and a small number are seen in the Habiganj, Moulvibazar and Sylhet regions. It never attacks people, he said.

He said that earlier, on January 9, they had beaten a jackal to death, and on January 13 they caught a rare civet (gandhagokul) and brought it away. "We went to the scene quickly and rescued it," he said. The case over the leopard cat's killing names six people and accuses more than 100 in all.

Chunarughat upazila nirbahi officer (UNO) Siddhartha Bhowmik said that since local people are catching and killing wild animals out of fear, loudspeaker announcements will be made to raise public awareness.

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