Monkey shot dead by a man in Digorkhal, Wildlife killer later handed over to the police by public

An inhumane incident took place in Ichachara Punjee located in Cachar’s Digorkhal last night. A man killed an innocent monkey with his gun which caused sensation in Ichachara area. As per reports, a local named Fuyet Singhbe shot dead a monkey while hunting. After the incident, locals gathered in the area and caught the killer man. Later, they handed him over to Gumrah Police.

Professor and former Head of the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science at Assam University, Parthankar Choudhury, expressed his sorrow over the incident, especially with World Wildlife Day approaching on March 3. He explained that the species of the deceased monkey was a Capped Langur, which is categorized as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List. Speaking to our correspondent, Choudhury said, “Capped langur, Trachypithecus pileatus (Blyth, 1843) belongs to Cercopithecidae family, and has four recognised sub-species (IUCN Red list). These include
i) Capped langur (Trachypithecus pileatus),
ii) Capped langur (Trachypithecus pileatus ssp. Brahma)
iii) Tenebrous capped langur (Trachypithecus pileatus ssp. tenebricus) and
iv) Blond bellied langur (Trachypithecus pileatus ssp. pileatus).
IUCN has categorized the first one as vulnerable, while the latter three as endangered. The species found in Barail wildlife sanctuary is the first one mentioned here.”

He added “As per Section 51(1) in The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, (amended up to 2022), killing or keeping in possession or transporting of any vulnerable, endangered or any such rare animal without permission of the forest department is a serious offense and penalty provisions are there which include both imprisonment for several years together and fine up to several thousands. One of the research scholars in wildlife Amir Sohail Choudhury expressed that restriction on air guns should be implemented. Air guns don’t require any licence so it is becomes easy to access these kind of guns. While these guns are used to kill birds, primates, squirrels but most importantly he has seen some modify these guns so that they can be used to kill muntjac, serow, wild boar. Such transformation in these guns make them very lethal short/mid range guns.”