GUWAHATI: Following the arrest of two most wanted poachers last month, police have arrested Kasim Ali who was another member of the gang. KNP divisional forest officer, Rohini Ballav Saikia, on Monday said Kasim, a resident of Milanpur in Biswanath district on the northern banks of Brahmaputra, was arrested along with an inflatable rubber dinghy, two .303 rifles, 31 rounds of ammunition and cash amounting to Rs 2 lakh on Friday.Kaziranga's northern range forest officer, Pranjal Baruah said Kasim had procured the inflatable rubber dinghy with an intention to poach rhinos when Kaziranga gets flooded. "A rubber dinghy, which is an improvised type of country boat, is favoured by poachers as they can be easily deflated and hidden. The dinghy was newly procured and Kasim had planned to use it for carrying out poaching activities when the park gets inundated," Baruah said.Kasim's arrest comes after another rhino poacher, Yakub Ali, was arrested by a team of Kaziranga's northern forest range officials and police at Panbazar here on June 28. During the operation, the team had recovered a sum of Rs 12 lakh from Yakub's mother Fatima Khatun. Baruah said Yakub was involved in killing four rhinos - one in 2014, two in 2016 and one this year. Kasim, who has a vast knowledge of the park's terrain, is the member of a gang of poachers which was reportedly planning to use poison-dipped arrows to kill rhinos at the Kaziranga.Last month, Sono Ngaihte of Manipur's Churachandpur and Kamal Tamang of Assam's Lakhimpur were arrested and a poisonous substance for dipping arrows into were recovered from them. Subsequently, Anuwar Islam and Musabbar Rahman of Sootea in Assam's Sonitpur district were also arrested by the police. Islam and Rahman had been reportedly planning to kill a rhino using poison-dipped arrows.A senior official in Kaziranga said the gang has widespread connections with rhino horn buyers, arms suppliers and hideouts in multiple states such as West Bengal , Kerala and Karnataka."This is a well-equipped gang with great networks. The recent arrests have struck a heavy blow to the activities of the gang," he added.

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