LUCKNOW: An FIR has been lodged against five professors of Aligarh Muslim University's department of wildlife sciences for restraining a black buck on the university campus with " criminal intent". On Monday, wildlife activists also lodged an online petition, demanding the government to take stringent action against the accused.

Earlier, in his FIR lodged on July 9, Naresh Kadyan, master trainer at Animal Welfare Board of India, has alleged that five persons – chairman of department of wildlife sciences, Aligarh Muslim University, Prof Jamal Ahmed Khan; readers, Dr Afifullah Khan and Dr Satish Kumar; and other faculty members, Prof H S A Yahya, and Dr Orus Ilyas – kept a black buck in captivity. Presently, the accused have been charged with sections related to cruelty towards an animal and keeping it captive. However, the wildlife activists are demanding that the professors be charged under the more stringent Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. According to Kadyan, the animal was kept in a specially-installed cage and the professors put the Schedule I animal on display, thus flouting various sections of the Wildlife Protection Act.