GUWAHATI:
The Assam Forest and police officials have recovered the horn of a rhino five days after it was killed by poachers in the 1,302 sq. km Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve.
A man identified as Jagu Pegu was arrested on Friday for possessing the horn, the nasal bone of the rhino, and an assault rifle of the AK series, officials said.
The park officials claimed this was the first instance of a horn being recovered less than a week after the killing of a rhino in the tiger reserve, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Although the post-mortem and DNA reports are awaited, forest officials said the discovery of a rhino carcass on January 26 led to Pegu’s arrest. The carcass was lying a kilometre from that of a female rhino found with its horn sawed off in the Agaratoli Range of the national park on January 21.
“The poachers had taken advantage of the low level of water in the Brahmaputra River to kill two rhinos in the same area,” a forest official said.
IN 2023, the park’s frontline staff recovered the carcasses of 79 rhinos that had died due to natural causes such as old age and flood. The horns of these rhinos were intact, making officials sure that the horn recovered from Pegu was from the rhino killed on January 21.
Kaziranga has an estimated 2,613 rhinos.
