Chicken deaths have been reported from Jalpaiguri district, which was so far free from bird-flu, even as culling operations continued in the other affected regions of the state today.

Three hundred chicks were reported dead at Baganbari village in Falakata area of Jalpaiguri, Falakata panchayat samity president Lily Chakraborty said.

An FIR was lodged and samples from the poultry sent for testing the presence of H5N1 virus.

In Darjeeling where chicken deaths were reported from Takdah village yesterday, District Magistrate Rajesh Pandey said the report on the samples was still awaited and no culling was being carried out.

Darjeeling municipality announced a ban on the sale of chicken and poultry products and asked people to desist from consuming them.

In worst-affected Birbhum the work to destroy chicken was taken up at Rajapukur, a new area to be affected by the disease as well as in Suri municipal area, official sources said at Suri.

The culling figure in the district was the highest at over 9.6 lakh while that in the state was yesterday revised to 28 lakh.

In Murshidabad district, culling is on at Lokhijola in Raghunathgunj II block, where fresh outbreak of bird flu was reported yesterday.

District authorities said 16,000 chicken was slated to be destroyed there till tomorrow.

Culling work is over in 10 other blocks of the district, where the target is over 6.46 lakh, the sources said.

While reports on chicken samples sent from Habra I, Swarupnagar and Baduria is yet to be received, culling work is on in those places.

Culling also on in South 24 Parganas and Coochebehar districts.

Central observer Bijoy Kumar visited affected Kuchlibari in Mekhliganj subdivision of Coochbehar to oversee culling operations. He also visited Chengrabandha international checkpost and inspected disinfection of vehicles entering the country from Bangladesh.

Destroying of chicken is over in Dinhata I and II blocks and continuing in Mathabhanaga I in the district, additional district magistrate (development) Pannalal Mohapatra said.

Culling operations have already been completed in Purulia, West Midnapore, Howrah and South Dinajpur. Preventive culling was carried out at North Dinajpur district.

At Nadia and Malda districts culling operations are slated to be completed today, official sources said.