Staff Reporter :
A writ petition has been filed on Monday with the virtual court of the high court division of the Supreme Court seeking its directive to stop killing of Dolphin in the Halda river of Chattogram.
Barrister Abdul Qaium Liton, a Supreme Court lawyer, filed the litigation through email in the newly formed virtual court of Justice Obaidul Hassan.
The lawyer said that, he filed the petition as a public interest litigation to stop killing of Dolphin in the Halda river of Chattagram. It was the first writ petition
in the virtual court, said the lawyer.
Fisheries Secretary and Director General of Directorate of Environment, among others, have been made respondents in the writ petition. The petitioner annexed some news cutting with the petition.
In the petition, the lawyer prayed to the court to issue a rule upon the government bodies to explain as to why their failure in protecting the Dolphin of the Halda river should not be declared illegal and as to why a direction should not be given to take initiatives to save the Dolphin of the Halda river.
The lawyer said, “No wildlife could be killed indiscriminately, according to Wildlife Act 2012. This is a criminal offence. Some unscrupulous people have brutally killed these innocent animals.”
On May 8, locals allegedly slaughtered a Gangetic Dolphin (Platanista gangetica) in Halda River to death in Raozan upazila of Chattogram.
The brutal murder of the endangered mammalian species took place at Zia Bazar area in Urirchar union adjacent to the river.
Twenty-four dolphins have died in Halda River since September 2017 till date, as per the published report.
