The experts fear that the Indian chicks might carry the deadly bird flu virus as an outbreak of H5N9 virus was revealed there recently. In the last two days thousands of chicks that had been smuggled from India were captured from different parts of the country.

The government banned import of chicks from more than 20 countries after the flu outbreak at those places. The ban gave rise to a monopoly of local chick producers in the market.

"The price of local chicks has increased up to Tk 40 from Tk 12 each within a few days. But the price of Indian chicks is no more than Tk 5," said Syed Abu Siddique, secretary general of Bangladesh Poultry Owners Association.

Nearly 30 thousand chicks that had been smuggled in from India were captured within the last two days.

The Detective Branch (DB) of Khulna Metropolitan Police (KMP) seized 13,200 banned Indian chicks from a house on East Link Road in the city yesterday morning, our Khulna correspondent reports.

Officials of the Livestock Department suspect that the chicks worth Tk 4 lakh were affected by bird flu. They were smuggled into the country through Chapainawabganj border and brought to Khulna on Friday, the police said.

They said 7,000 of the seized chicks died yesterday afternoon. The others were to be culled by this morning in presence of the officials of Livestock Department.

Assistant Commissioner of DB Zahur Chowdhury said the chicks were seized from a house of Sharafat Hossain near the KMP headquarters.

The police seized and culled 10,000 chicks in Comilla on Friday. They also captured 5,700 chicks while they were being transported to Dhaka from Natore. Those chicks are waiting to be culled.

"We have 20 vigilance teams around the border areas to capture Indian chicks with the help of the law enforcers," said Syed Abu Siddique.

Poultry farm owners and experts said any kind of apathy on the part of the government agencies might damage the poultry sector that has an investment of Tk 5,000 crore and on which depends the livelihood of about 50 lakh people.

Following several newspaper reports the government also alerted Bangladesh Rifles to prevent smuggling of Indian chicks.

Until now the facilities for bird flu examination are only available in Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI) in Savar.

"All samples should be sent to BLRI to confirm the flu virus. Outside of Dhaka the facilities are not available," said Dr Monzur Murshid, leading poultry vaccination expert of the country. With the help of a special kind of kit, it is possible to detect the virus instantly, he said.

Bangladesh has about 150,000 poultry farms with an annual turnover of $750 million. Production of chicks has declined from 4.5-5 million to 3.5-4 million per week following the epidemic.