On Thursday, Bangladesh celebrated the extraordinary rat-slaying achievements of 55-year-old farmer Abdul Khaleq Mirbohor, who took national honors plus a cash prize valued at $250 USD, for leading a team of mostly female volunteers in the killing of some 160,000 rats.
“Mr. Mirbohor is a passionate rat killer. During the ceremony, he told the dignitaries that nothing gives him pleasure (more) than killing grain-eating rodents,” government agriculture official Abul Kalam Azad proudly explained to the AFP news service.
According to the report, some of Mirbohor’s neighbors were a bit less charitable, describing him as “mad” and utterly “obsessed” with killing rats. It is, however, a very useful mania, because rodents are said to destroy nearly 2 million tons of food in Bangladesh every year.
The quantity of rats dispatched to the hereafter by the team was verified by collecting their tails as trophies. According to government officials, Mirbohor’s tally came to exactly 161,220 severed tails. The AFP report doesn’t get into the details of exactly how he trained his team to kill them, although it says the terminations were mostly carried out in rice paddies and wheat fields, so it was probably hard work.
“I’ve been killing rats since 1996. I love killing them. They are the enemy of the country and people. They devour grains, ground nuts and spread diseases,” said Mirbohor.
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