Golaghat (Assam), January 20: A carcass of an adult female rhino, suspected to be killed by poachers, with its horn missing was detected inside Kaziranga National Park in Assam, senior officials said on Thursday.
This is the first case of suspected poaching of the world famous one-horned rhino in Assam this year.
Kaziranga National Park (KNP) Director P Sivakumar said the carcass was found on Thursday morning by the staff of Hilekhonda camp.
“It is a poaching case and the horn was removed by poachers. The rhino was an adult female. The time of death appears to be more than 15 days,” he said.
The mutilated rhino carcass was found inside tall elephant grass about one km away from the camp, Sivakumar said.
On January 15, the Anti-Rhino Poaching Task Force Chief Gyanendra Pratap Singh had said only one rhinoceros was killed by poachers during 2021 at Kaziranga National Park in Assam.
Singh, also the Special DGP (Law and Order) of Assam Police, had asserted that the Anti-Poaching Task Force would be ruthless in eliminating the poaching of famed one-horned rhinos in Assam and aims to eliminate this menace.
He had shared the data for 22 years since 2000 on Twitter and claimed that incidents of rhino poaching were least in 2021. (PTI)