Poachers killed another rhino in Kaziranga

Guwahati, April 12 : Assam state government once again failed to protect wild animals in Kaziranga National Park (KNP) as poachers killed another rhino and managed to flee its horn in the park.

The park officials had found a dehorned bullet injuries carcass at Rongamati Pahumara area under Agoratoli forest range inside the park on Thursday night.

“The forest guards found the dehorned carcass of a male rhino at the area,” an officials of the national park said.

“Suspected poachers killed the rhino three days before,” the official said.

During this year poacher killed 22 one horned rhinoceros in Kaziranga so far.

In poaching, since 2001, Kaziranga has lost 160 rhinos.

For better surveillance, on April 8, the state forest department had introduced an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in the world heritage site as a test drive.

In the rhino killing incidents, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will investigate three cases of one-horned rhino poaching in Kaziranga National Park and a high level team of the national investigating agency will arrive in Guwahati on Friday.

The CBI has registered three cases relating to rhino poaching incidents by using fire arms and taking away their body parts, from July to September in 2012 in Golaghat, Karbi Anglong and Nagaon districts near the national park.

CBI has taken the cases of rhino poaching on request of the Assam government and registered the cases on further notification of the Union government.

Meanwhile, Assam forest minister Rockybul Hussain said the state government had asked for a CBI probe into the rhino killings in Kaziranga.

“We hope, the actual picture will come after the report is submitted by the national investigation organization,” Hussain said.

The recent census report said that a total of 2329 rhinos were found in the world heritage site.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)