GUWAHATI: The arrest of two most wanted poachers last month led the joint team Kaziranga National Park officials and police to nab the sixth member of the gang, infamous for devising new methods to kill rhino at the World Heritage Site KNP divisional forest officer, Rohini Ballav Saikia on Monday informed that Kasim Ali, a resident of Milanpur in Biswanath district on the northern banks of Brahmaputra, was arrested along with an inflatable rubber boat, two .303 rifles, 31 rounds of ammunition and cash amount of Rs 2 lakh from his possession on Friday.Kaziranga’s northern range forest officer, Pranjal Baruah said that Kasim had procured the inflatable rubber dinghy with an intention to poach rhino inside the Kaziranga when the park gets flooded.“A rubber dinghy is an improvisation of country boats because poachers can deflate and hide it according to their convenience. The dinghy was newly procured, and Kasim had planned to use it in poaching this time once the park is inundated,” Baruah said.Kasim was arrested following the lead from another arrest of rhino poacher Yakub Ali by a team of Kaziranga’s northern forest range officials and police at Panbazar here on June 28. During the operation the team recovered Rs 12 lakh Yakub kept with his mother Fatima Khatun. Baruah said Yakub was involved in killing four rhinos—one in 2014, two in 2016 and one this year.Kasim, who is known as field-man to other poachers for his knowledge on the park’s terrain, is a member of the gang that was preparing to kill rhino using poison-dipped arrow and bow last month.Last month Sono Ngaihte of Manipur’s Churachandpur and Kamal Tamang of Lakhimpur in Assam were arrested with a poisonous substance for dipping arrows in it. Their arrests subsequently led to the arrests of Anuwar Islam and Musabbar Rahman of Sootea in Assam’s Sonitpur district . Islam and Rahman had planned to kill a rhino using poison-dipped arrow to avoid making noise from gunfire shots.Islam and Rahman however, did kill a rhino with firearm as poison did not reach them following the earlier arrests of Ngaihte and Tamang.A senior official in Kaziranga said that the gang has widespread networks of rhino horn buyers, arms suppliers and hideouts in multiple states including in West Bengal, Kerala and Karnataka “This is a well-equipped and highly networked gang. The recent arrests have given a blow to the gang,” he added.

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