Guwahati, February 7 : Assam police had arrested five rhino poachers in central Assam’s Nagaon district on Tuesday, who were planned to poach rhino inside the World Heritage site Kaziranga National Park, officials said.
Police also recovered one 303 rifle, 18 rounds live ammunition in possession from them.
According to the reports, based on intelligence input, Jakhalabandha police in Nagaon district had launched operation at Harmoti area and arrested the poacher gang.
Officer-in-Charge of Jakhalabandha police station Deben Bora said that, the poacher gang had planned to kill rhino inside the national park under Bagori range office.
Following a tip-off, a team of Jakhalabandha police station had launched operation at Harmoti area near Bagori and arrested a poacher Faruq Ahmed who travelled on a vehicle.
Later police arrested four more poachers of the gang who were planned to kill rhino in Kaziranga.
Police had recovered one 303 rifle, 18 rounds live ammunition and a silencer in possession from the arrested poachers.
The arrested poachers were identified as Faruq Ahmed, Foorkan Ali, Mustafa Ahmed, Padda Rajput, Gulzar Hussain.
Police had interrogated the poachers to collect more information.
Poachers have killed over 200 one horned rhinos in Kaziranga National Park in past a decade.
In this year, two rhinos were poached inside the national park so far.
Kaziranga National Park is home to more than 80 per cent of India’s rhinosand over 91 per cent of Assam’s count.
According to the 2015 population census, 2401 rhinos are in Kaziranga.
(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
