Six suspected tiger poachers shot dead in Bangladesh

Six alleged tiger poachers were killed in a “gunfight” with police in the Sundarbans yesterday afternoon.

The dead are Siddiq Sana, 44, Ansar Ali Sana, 55, and Rafiqul Islam, 38, of South Betkashi village, Mamun Gazi, 28, and Bappi Dhali, 22, of Charamukh village, and Majid Gazi, 35, of Bayarsingh village in Koyra upazila of Satkhira.

This is the second highest number of deaths in a "shootout" in the Sundarbans after 13 people were killed in a “shootout” on October 5 last year.

Police claimed that all the six are "tiger poachers" and members of a Sundarbans-based robber gang, led by one Elias.

Acting on a tip-off that some “tiger poachers” were in Alki Mandarbaria area of the West Sundarbans in Koyra upazila, a police team raided the area around 3:45pm, said Harendranath Sarkar, officer-in-charge of Koyra Police Station.

When the team reached near the spot, the “poachers” opened fire on police, forcing them to fire back that resulted in the “gunfight”, said the police official.

After the gun battle, six bullet-hit bodies of the “poachers” were found at the spot, he claimed. 

Five firearms, 17 bullets and three tiger hides were also recovered from the spot, the OC claimed.

The police official also claimed that he along with three other policemen was

injured in the “gunfight”. They took first aid.

Seeing the condition of the hides, it seemed that the animals had been killed recently, Zahir Uddin Ahmed, divisional forest officer of the Sundarbans (west division), told The Daily Star. 

In another incident yesterday, the forest department captured two suspected tiger poachers -- Abdullah Sana and Nazrul Sana and handed over them to police.

Poaching tigers and its preys in the Sundarbans, commercial boat traffic through different channels and development activities within and near the world's largest mangrove forest is threatening the Bengal tiger population.

Now only 106 of the big cats are left in Bangladesh, according to a recent census. In 2004, a pugmark survey estimated some 668 in both parts of the Sundarbans with 440 in Bangladesh part alone.