Rhino horn dealers, allegedly working from Nagaland, continue to be a major threat for the rhinos in Assam, as they are regularly found supplying arms and ammunition to poachers in the state.

According to the Telegraph reports, Jorhat police apprehended two poachers — Bishnu Pegu and Nagen Pegu — while they were transporting a .303 rifle and ammunition to Kaziranga from the Teok area here. The duo revealed during interrogation that the weapon was handed over to them by a horn trader from Nagaland.

Rhino horns from Assam invariably land in Dimapur from where they head for the India-Myanmar border.
From there, they are smuggled to Myanmar through the border town of Moreh in Manipur.

Once in Myanmar, the horn is transported to China, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, where it is used to make various medicines. Officer in-charge of Bhogdoi police outpost Hemen Das said the rifle recovered from the two poachers was developed in such a way that it could be folded, dismantled into smaller parts and stored, making it easy to carry.

 “We have also recovered a silencer, 12 rounds of ammunition and a magazine from their possession,” the officer said. Das said the Kaziranga authorities have confirmed that the duo were most wanted poachers who had been involved in the killing of many rhinos at the national park.

He said the duo had revealed during interrogation that the rifle was handed over to them by a horn trader from Nagaland in the Teok Mudoijan area on the outskirts of the city.  “Interrogation of the duo is currently on,” the police official said.

A forest official at Kaziranga National Park said there was clear evidence that the rhino horn trade in the region is controlled from Nagaland, especially from Dimapur town.

 “These horn traders not only supply arms and ammunition to poachers in the state, but also send sharpshooters from the neighbouring state to kill rhinos in the national parks of the state, especially Kaziranga and Orang,” he said.

The Kaziranga official said unless the international demand for rhino horns and the criminal networks in Dimapur are taken care of, there is very little that the Assam forest department could do to check poaching in the state.

Only recently, photos of two shooters, suspected to be hailing from Nagaland, were trapped on camera installed at the Burapahar range of the national park. The cameras had been installed to carry out a Royal Bengal tiger census.

A police official in Sootea PS, Sonitpur district said two poachers arrested recently had confessed during interrogation that they were paid Rs 5 lakh in advance by a gang of rhino horn traders in Nagaland. Apart from a portion of the cash, the police also recovered a .303 rifle and ammunition from their possession.

A forest official at Orang National Park said a mobile phone recovered from a poacher who died in an encounter with forest guards a couple of years ago had revealed that the poacher was in constant touch with a person in Nagaland.