"Six poachers" killed in gunfight with Bangladesh police

Six persons arrested on poaching charges have been killed in an alleged shootout with police in Bangladesh part of Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest.

Mohammad Moniruzzaman, deputy inspector general of Police Range in Khulna, some 180 km southwest of capital Dhaka, told the journalists that the poachers were arrested on Sunday morning.

In the afternoon he said a team of law enforcers took the arrestees to a Sundarbans area to recover more tiger hides and firearms.

Sensing the lawenforcers' presence, other poachers opened fire on police, forcing them to retaliate that triggered the gunfight, he said.

He said "arrested poachers were caught in the line of fire and died on the spot but their cohorts managed to flee."

Five policemen were injured in the gunfight, he added.

police later found there four guns, three pistols and three pieces of hides of Royal Bengal Tigers.

A new survey revealed last month that there are only 106 tigers are living in Bangladesh's part.

It is often alleged that overrated poaching in and around the forest creates pollution for the reduction of Bengal Tiger population in Bangladesh.

The earlier governmental tiger census carried out in 2004 with pug mark method estimated the number of tiger in Bangladesh Sundarbans in 440.