DHAKA, Sept 11: A metropolitan sessions court in Dhaka has sentenced five people to 14 years rigorous imprisonment on the charge of killing four Royal Bengal Tigers at Dhaka Zoo in 1996, local dailies reported on Thursday.

Those convicted are the tigers’ keepers, who were also fined Tk 20,000 or in default another two years in jail.The judge acquitted nine other accused.First of its kind in the country, the verdict will help reduce cruelty to animals, the judge said. “The protectors of animals killed them and so they must be punished,” the judge said.

Four Royal Bengal Tigers, aged three months, seven years, 14 years and 20 years, died in the Dhaka Zoo at Mirpur between November 9 and 11, 1996. A general diary was lodged with the Mirpur police in this connection on Nov 14, 1996.

But the autopsy revealed that the tigers were poisoned to death, and the then curator of the Dhaka Zoo, Professor Dr Afsar Ali, filed a case on Nov 24 the same year without accusing anyone.

After investigation, ASP Mujibur Rahman of the Criminal Investigation Department, charged 14 people with the killing under special powers. A total of 14 people were made witnesses and nine of them were cross-examined during the trial.