Bangladeshi among nine wildlife traffickers held in Assam
Nine people, including a Bangladeshi national, have been arrested in western Assam’s Chirang district for smuggling endangered golden langurs to an international destination via West Bengal. Photo: Special arrangement
A Bangladeshi national was among nine wildlife traders arrested in western Assam’s Chirang district around midnight on Friday (June 19, 2026).
The Special Task Force (STF) of Assam Police arrested the nine with the help of Chirang Police along Bamungaon Road under Sidli Police Station. Eight golden langurs were recovered from their property and one of them was found dead.
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The golden langur is an endangered species notified under Schedule I of the Wildlife Conservation Act, 1972 with a black market value of about ₹16 lakh, officials said.
The arrested Bangladeshi national has been identified as Mohammed Jamal. He said he was from Dhaka and had entered India on June 15. Officials suspected he had entered the country illegally.
An STF spokesperson said five of Jamal’s accomplices — Injamamul Hoque Mondal, Abdul Khalek Mondal, Fakir Chand Mandal, Alomgir Mulla and Latibul Shaikh — are from West Bengal. The remaining three, identified as Jackson Biswakarma, Ranjit Narzary and Pinkush Narzary, hail from Assam.
He said the nine were part of a large international wildlife trafficking network. They transported the primates in two vehicles.
Divisional Forest Officer Chirang Kunjan Basumatary said two cages were arranged for the golden langurs as they were kept in suffocation bags.
“The langurs were stressed. They will soon be released into their natural habitat in the presence of a judge,” he said.
Mr. Basumatary said the animals were captured from Ultapani area of Kokrajhar district and were traded through local middlemen in Chirang for supply to potential buyers. Two vehicles used to smuggle the primates were confiscated.
“Since a Bangladeshi is involved, we can call it an international wildlife trafficking gang. They had plans to take the animals to West Bengal and from there to the international black market,” he said, adding that the police and forest department would investigate whether more people were part of the gang.
A woman from Dhaka held
On Tuesday (June 17, 2026), police arrested a 24-year-old woman from Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati after she confessed to being a Bangladeshi national.
Officials said airport authorities became suspicious of her movement when she was collecting her luggage after arriving on an evening flight from Bengaluru. She was found using a fake Aadhaar card.
Later, after questioning by the border department of the state police (whose job is to detect and detain foreign nationals who enter Assam illegally) and border security forces, the woman said she was a resident of Narayanganj, near the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.
Police said she allegedly entered India through Tripura with the help of a human trafficker. “Before she crossed, she got a fake Aadhaar card in the name of Puja Das with an address in West Bengal,” the official said.
The woman has been sent to a transit camp (detention center) at Matia in southwestern Assam’s Goalpara for further legal proceedings.
Guwahati police also detained 13 suspected Bangladeshi nationals on Friday (June 19, 2026) during a routine verification drive. They were staying in a guest house and were in possession of documents of dubious origin, police said.
Published – 20 Jun 2026 21:44 IST