4 Rhino poachers arrested in Darranged

Guwahati: The Assam Police on Wednesday arrested four suspected rhino poachers at Orang National Park and recovered arms, ammunition and other materials from their possession, top police official said.

Assam’s Director General of Police Gyanendra Pratap Singh appreciating the personnel of Darrang district police, said in a post on the X: “Four persons arrested by Darrang Police in connection with the planning for rhino poaching at Orang National Park.”

The suspected rhino poachers were identified as Nur Hussain, Abul Hussain, Jaffar Ali and Nur Islam.

One .303 Rifle with ammunition, three mobile handsets, five motorcycles and camping stores were recovered from their possession. “They were planning to go inside the park for poaching,” the DGP said. On October 26, a rhino poaching attempt was thwarted through quick action by the police and forest department personnel in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR), a UNESCO world heritage site.

KNPTR Director Sonali Ghosh said that police personnel of Biswanath district and the forest department arrested two poachers, identified as Rasidul Haque (28) and Sibe Ali (36). “Based on intelligence inputs regarding miscreants planning to hunt a rhino, two individuals were arrested. They were planning to hunt the rhino in collaboration with additional miscreants in Kaziranga National Park.

“An investigation is underway to apprehend other culprits linked to the case,” she had said.

According to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Kaziranga and other reserved and protected habitats of the one-horned rhino in Assam recorded an 86 per cent drop in poaching of the animal since 2016. Sarma recently said poachers have killed 190 rhinos between 2000 and 2021.

As per Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “commitment to promoting and preserving animals,” the state government has made efforts to protect rhino, an animal that has been “synonymous to the identity” of Assam, the Chief Minister had said. More than 2,850 rhinos were recorded in various national parks and protected habitats during the last census of the animal in 2022.

The KNPTR, measuring about 1,300 sq km, is home to more than 2,613 one-horned Indian rhinos followed by the over 38 sq km Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary (107) and the 279.83 sq km Orang National Park (101).

India’s seventh (fourth in natural) UNESCO World Heritage site, the KNPTR is spread across several districts of Assam, including Golaghat, Nagaon, Sonitpur, and Biswanath.

The world-famous park is not just a home of rhinos, but also to Royal Bengal tigers, Asian elephants, wild buffalos and many more animal species while it is also habitat to thousands of birds of over 125 species.