Poacher caught with rhino horn, escapes from police custody by jumping into Brahmaputra

Within days of Assam Police recovering a rhino horn from Nagaon in Assam, another rhino horn was seized from the same place yesterday.

The poacher was arrested from Nagaon’s Barduwa Santijan market with the rhino horn on April 15. The poacher, identified as Saidul Islam (28), was found hiding in Baharpatti and was taken into custody by the special task force team, who had received specific inputs about his whereabouts.

During interrogation, a 7.40-gram weighing horn was recovered from Saidul, which was reported to be one month old. It is being suspected that the horn could be of the rhino that was found dead on March 26 near Kaziranga National Highway, Kathpara Sitalmari area.

However, in a turn of events, while the police were taking Saidul to the forest area to retrieve the gun used to kill the rhino, he managed to escape from police custody by jumping into the Brahmaputra river.
The Nagaon SP Leena Doley said that the police have launched a manhunt but Saidul continues to be on the run.

Police had recovered the first rhino horn on March 23 this year.

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