Guwahati: The body of a rhino poacher who fled from police custody was found floating in the Brahmaputra River in Assam, reports emerged on Sunday.
The poacher has been identified as Saidul Islam.
According to reports, Islam escaped police custody on Friday while being transported to the Kaziranga National Park’s Bagori range to locate the rhino carcass that had been slaughtered and its horn stolen.
Saidul was a resident of Lahorighat in Nagaon district.
An operation against a group of four rhino horn poachers in the Batadrava locality of Nagaon was launched by the Special Task Force (STF) of the Assam Police last Friday.
The task team had captured one poacher identified as Saidul Islam during the operation and seized one rhino horn weighing 750 grammes from his possession while the other three fled the scene.
The STF team and Saidul went to the Bagori area of Kaziranga National Park in order to locate the rhino carcass. However, the defendant was able to flee by taking advantage of the darkness.
According to information received, the rhino horn was purchased by the group of poachers with the intention of selling it in Batadrava’s Shantipur market.
Reports further stated that the other three poachers had also managed to flee from the scene.
Nagaon Police earlier opened fire targeting one of the poachers from the group while he tried to manage to escape from the scene.
The poacher was identified as Hatem Ali.
Meanwhile, the STF squad has been conducting a search operation to capture all four poachers.