Angry mother rhino kills poacher in Kaziranga

Kaziranga (Assam), Oct 5 - A poacher responsible for killing several rhinos in Assam's Kaziranga National Park met his end when a female rhinoceros with a calf gored him to death when he went on another hunting mission in the protected area.

Gaonbura Ronfar, alias Babu, a resident of Koliabor sub-division of Assam, was killed by a female rhino on Sep 23 inside the Kukurakota forest range on the fringe of Kaziranga, an official disclosed Friday.

'It took almost 10 days to conclusively identify the person,' range ffficer of the park Ekramul Muzid said.

Gaonbura Ronfar reportedly entered the Kukurakota reserve forest at night along with an accomplice, who belonged to the Paite community of Nagaland, to hunt rhinos, a protected animal.

An angry female, which had a calf along with it, attacked the two men in self-defence. While Ronfar died on the spot, his accomplice managed to escape.

'We searched for his body in the Kukurakota forest range for four days but we couldn't find it. We established his identity through our intelligence network,' he said.

Ronfar's accomplice passed on the message of his death to his family through a local youth. But his family members kept his death a secret, fearing public anger. Villagers have been made aware of the need to protect wildlife and report poaching activities to the authorities.

Muzid came to know of the incident and started a probe.

Initially, Ronfar's family members insisted that his death was due to natural causes, but on further questioning they confessed the real cause of death.

Ronfar had been arrested for poaching in 2003, but was released due to lack of evidence.

Rhinos are hunted for their horn, wrongly believed to be an aphrodisiac, and for their skin, which is also used in some traditional systems of medicine.

(c) Indo-Asian News Service

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