(IN): Editorial Threat to Rhinos

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Link: http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=may2007\edit1*

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The Assam Tribune

*EDITORIAL*

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Threat to rhinos

 

* *C*riminals have a keen eye to find loopholes in law and in the way law

enforcing agencies function. Recent reports in the press that people from

Nagaland were involved in rhino poaching inside Kaziranga National Park have

underlined this fact, much to the distress of forest personnel and

conservationists. It has been found that people from Nagaland have entered

the protected area with sophisticated arms and equipment and carried out

their offensive acts. With the arrival of poachers with more killing power,

the fauna of the national park now face even greater danger. Their criminal

activities have opened another front in the fight against poachers, a

development that the already stressed forest personnel in Kaziranga could

have done without. There are apprehensions in some circles that the new

poachers could be part of a larger international gang with links to

narco-terrorists, which are already operating in parts of the North East. If

that is the case then Kaziranga could witness more poaching in the near

future. It is worth mentioning here that Kaziranga this year has seen a

sudden spurt in the poaching of rhinos. Six animals have been killed till

May, a trend that has not been witnessed in recent years. It is time that

the Forest Department took the issue seriously and made better arms

available to the personnel working in Kaziranga. The department should take

up the matter with their counterparts in Nagaland and build co-operation

that would allow for successful flow of information and intelligence inputs.

Ties should also come up between the police forces of the two states, so

that criminals on the run could be tracked under a seamless investigative

process. The need for the police to investigate vigorously and make

watertight cases could hardly be exaggerated. It has been seen that many

poachers go unpunished because the cases against them failed to make any

impact in the court of law.