Kingpin of rhino horn trade held

GUWAHATI, Feb 7 — The kingpin of rhino horn trade in the State, Md Abdul Kalam was arrested by Mayong police led by the officer-in-charge, Pradeep Nath yesterday from Kuranibari village under Mayong police station. The arrested Md Abdul Kalam was involved in the illegal trade on rhino horn in the State and has links with rhino horn traders based at Dimapur. He is suspected to be the mastermind behind the recent rhino poaching in Pobitora wildlife sanctuary through electrocution on January 8 midnight. It may be mentioned that more than a kilometre long electric wire was used to electrocute the rhino in Pobitora sanctuary on the mid-night of January 8 and in the process two poachers also got killed. However, police and forest officials later recovered the rhino horn during a operation from the house of Johura Khatun in the night of January 9. Total six persons were involved in electrocution of the rhino out of whom two died due to electrocution, one was arrested while three others were still absconding. Dr Bibhab Talukdar, the secretary general of Aranyak Natue Club and a member of Wildlife Crime Monitoring Centre, informed that Md Abdul Kalam and his associates tried to use their “political clout” to pressurise the officer-in-charge of Mayong police station to release him immediately.