Assam: Suspected Rhino Poacher Arrested in Sarupathar

A person suspected for being allegedly involved in poaching a rhino has been arrested by the Sarupathar police in Golaghat.

The arrested poacher has been identified as Uttam Khaklari who is a resident of Rengmaipur in Uriamghat.

He has been suspected to be the gunman in the rhino poaching that took place in Kaziranga’s Kohora in January.

Khaklari is currently under police interrogation.

Arrested Uttam Khaklari was working in the Naga Regiment for almost 10 years. But due to his disobedience and negligence, he was terminated from work in 2015.

He was allegedly hiding in Nagaland but had recently moved to the Sarupathar area and based on inputs, the police arrested him from a designated location.

No weapons were recovered from him during his arrest.

Earlier the Assam Police released photographs of three suspected poachers announcing a cash reward of Rs 2 lakhs for any leads on the suspects.

It may be mentioned that in the early morning of February 3, police was indulged in a gun battle with four rhino poachers at Jahaji Basti in Uriamghat.

A rhino poacher identified as Abdul Syed was dead in the firing that took place with the police.

In what can be termed as a huge milestone in the efforts to reduce the menace of poaching in Assam, only one solitary case of rhino poaching was reported in the state in 2021. This is the lowest number of cases the state has seen in 21 years.

The one-horned rhinoceros was killed by poachers in Kaziranga National Park in April 2021.

Rhino poaching in Assam was at its peak in 2013 and 2014. 27 rhinos were killed in each of the two years. Between 2000 and 2015, a total of 153 rhinos were poached in the state.

In 2016, 18 rhinos were poached while 17 were killed at different national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in 2015.

Six rhinos were killed in 2017, seven in 2018, three in 2019 and two in 2020.