Angry mother rhino kills poacher in Kaziranga - 5
Oct 2007
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.
