The Little Rock Zoo

.The Little Rock Zoo needs to step up and care for the animals better! Please read the several artciles here with deaths, sickness and a bald chimp!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Monkeys Stolen From Alipore Zoo

OLKATA: A day after seven of the eight common marmosets stolen from Alipore zoo were rescued from a house in Chhattisgarh's Durg, Kolkata Police

on Saturday said they were expecting the monkeys to arrive in Kolkata by Monday. The city police also arrested a man called Sujoy Das alias Bubai from Dum Dum on suspicion of being involved in the racket.

Das is said to be an aide of Raj Saikia, who was arrested in Chhattisgarh on Friday in connection with the theft case. The city cops are preparing to bring Saikia to the city on transit remand for interrogation.

"One team left for Chhattisgarh by flight at 5.30 am while another went by train. We are expecting the marmosets to be brought back to Kolkata by Monday. We are interrogating several persons here and have also found some local links, which we are probing," said Jawed Shamim, joint commissioner of police (headquarters).

Shamim said Chhattisgarh Police got information that one person was trying to sell some monkeys. Acting on this tip-off, they nabbed Saikia for keeping the marmosets. Police also said Saikia, a native of Assam, was an animal thief. He was arrested in Pune in 2006 for allegedly having a role in the theft of macaws. He also lived in Mumbai for some time and was currently staying in Chhattisgarh.

Police are trying to find out how exactly the marmosets was stolen. "We will find out whether Raj came to Kolkata to steal the marmosets or got delivery of the marmosets from his local contacts here. The manner in which the marmosets were kept in the Durg house for so many days and the way the gang was still searching for prospective buyers suggested that it was probably not a very well-organized racket," Shamim said.

The monkey thieves did not know how much the marmosets could fetch in the market, police said. "Each of them has a price tag of $1,700 (Rs 85,000), but the accused were demanding only Rs 35 lakh for the entire bunch of seven," Shamim said.

Police also suspect that the same group had made a similar attempt at Alipore zoo in March. "Whether the local sources have links with the zoo is a matter of investigation," he added.

The city cops are trying to find out how frequently Saikia contacted his sources in Kolkata. They also feel that the racket may have spread to Bangladesh besides having an inter-state connection. "It could be possible that he (Saikia) developed his contacts while he was in jail previously. We are exploring all angles," a police officer said.

The marmosets were stolen from Alipore zoo on August 9. The then zoo director was later suspended.

Source

No comments:

Post a Comment