Kangaroos are endemic to Australia; siamangs to South-East Asia.

Jhon Das, the subdivisional police officer in West Karbi Anglong’s Bokajan said the animals were discovered during a routine check of a Maruti Ecco van coming from Dimapur.

“At around 5:30pm on Tuesday, officials from Dilai police station stopped the vehicle and found that there were some caged animals inside. The two persons inside the vehicle tried to flee but our officials managed to catch them,” Das added. The two have been identified as Habibur Rahman (46) and Janab Khan (50), both residents of Sangaiyumpham village in Thoubal district of Manipur, police said. Vipin Bansal, assistant district forest official of Karbi Anglong East Division, confirmed that the seized animals are siamangs. “One is an adult, while the rest four are juveniles,” he said.

The black-furred siamang is an ape, and the largest of the gibbons. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), of which India is a signatory, lists siamangs in Appendix 1, which means they are under threat of “extinction” and trade in the species is “permitted only in exceptional circumstances”.

In the March 12 case involving the kangaroos, police detained the driver and cleaner of the truck (both from Hyderabad) who produced letters from the Indore zoo.

The two documents produced were a “Transit Permission letter” and a “Purchase Order”, both signed by the curator of the Kamla Nehru Prani Sangrahalay, popularly known as the Indore zoo. “One red kangaroo was being donated to us by a man named Thagtee based in Mizoram. He had contacted us saying that he was the owner of a farm dealing with exotic animals. It was, however, not the first time that he has donated animals to the Indore zoo. A few months back he had donated some budgerigars,” said Nihar Parulekar, curator of the zoo.

The budgerigar is a bird widely in demand as a pet . A kangaroo is entirely different. Thagtee’s motives for wanting to give away kangaroos aren’t clear.

The other end of the chain led the police to investigate Thagtee, owner of the Buennel Farm in Mizoram. Yet, investigators have virtually no information about this man so far, failing to trace him. HT managed to procure a phone number reportedly belonging to Thagtee, but his phone was switched off, with SMS queries going unanswered.

The Mizoram forest department says it has no knowledge of farms dealing with exotic animals. The farm doesn’t have a website. No address was mentioned on the documents apart from Buennel Farm.

But the failed transaction has triggered suspicion that illegal farms could be operating along the Indo-Myanmar border, and dealing with exotic species. “Indian zoos can accept animals only through exchange with other zoos and donations; they can’t purchase animals. Also, if any farm wants to deal with exotic animals such as red kangaroos they need to declare it on the Parivesh portal of the Union ministry of environment and forests. The chief wildlife warden of the state has to know,” said Agni Mitra, deputy director (eastern region) of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau.

The seizure of the siamangs would appear to confirm that suspicion. Kangaroos, too, are covered by CITES but under Appendix 2, which means the species isn’t under threat of extinction but that trade “must be controlled in order to avoid utilisation incompatible with their survival.” It isn’t clear why and how the Indore zoo authorities were happy to accept such an animal being donated by someone from Mizoram.

“We had to make the payment for the transportation. Not the animal. It was being donated to us. In the document signed by us, it is also written that the animals must be from a legal source and with necessary documents. We would have had to produce all documents before the Central Zoo Authority after receiving the kangaroo,” said Indore zoo’s Parulekar.

The “Transit Permission letter” a copy of which is with HT, says that Thagtee would be delivering the product himself. But when the two persons were arrested, he was not among them. The two arrested were identified as SK Javed and SK Imran. They are now out on bail.

On April 1, two kangaroos were rescued at Gajoldoba, a tourist destination in Jalpaiguri district, near Siliguri, and a third at Farabari, around 40km away, also in Jalpaiguri. The next morning locals spotted the carcass of a fourth and alerted the forest department.

The Indore zoo said it knows nothing of the second consignment, and there has been little headway in investigations either. “We don’t have any clue as of yet. As no persons were arrested we could not question anyone to get some clues,” said Debal Roy, chief wildlife warden of West Bengal.

But other officers of the West Bengal state forest department and officials of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau said that the animals (the kangaroos and the siamangs) may have originated from animal farms which exist in south-east Asian countries and may have entered India through the Indo-Myanmar border.

Assam forest minister Parimal Suklabaidya said there is an international racket of smuggling animals which can be very large. The consignments enter to India from Myanmar through Manipur and Mizoram. “We tried to find the destination but we still don’t have clear picture. There can be private zoos or people who like to keep caged exotic animals at home. There is possibility that this international racket is using India as a transit route only, and the animals and birds are going to international market through Bangladesh or other countries,” Suklabaidya said.

Admitting that Guwahati has become an important transit point for smuggled exotic animals, the minister said locals from Manipur and Mizoram are just couriers, who don’t know about the final destination or about its origin. “The persons we arrest, have little idea about who gave them the consignments. So, we don’t find ways to catch the actual culprit,” he said. Bansal added that the two arrested persons have told them that they were to be told about the person to whom the consignment was to be delivered when they would have reached Guwahati.

WCCB officials said an international syndicate of exotic wildlife smugglers whose kingpin was based in Mizoram was busted by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in October 2018. Following that several operations were conducted and many animals and birds were rescued at the borders of north-eastern states.

Bansal said the siamangs are in good health and they have been examined by a local veterinary doctor. They will soon be sent to a zoo.

Meanwhile, the three kangaroos found alive are recovering at an animal park near Sliguri.The first one, found on March 12, has been sent to the Kolkata zoo.