Three held for dolphin death

POLICE arrested three people in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh last Friday (8) for beating an endangered dolphin to death with an axe.

“The incident happened on December 31 and we have arrested three people in connection with the assault,” local policeman Dinesh Prasad said.

In a video shared widely in the Indian press and on social media, a group of men are shown beating the Gangetic dolphin with sticks and rods before one of them drives an axe into its body. According to the World Wildlife Fund, there are only between 1,200 and 1,800 of the endangered species left in the world.

Prasad said the motive for killing the marine mammal remained unclear.