Another Rhino killed !

The carcass of a rhinoceros, shot and stripped of its horn, was found in Kaziranga on Friday, the ninth to be killed in the national park since January.
The anti-poaching measures taken by the forest department are clearly not helping. On Thursday night, a group of poachers shot a rhino and cut off its horn in the Arikati area of Agoratoli forest range in the eastern part of the park. The carcass was found on Friday.
Nine rhinos have been killed in Kaziranga and 12 in the state since this January.
The forest department deployed two battalions of the newly raised Assam Forest Protection Force in Kaziranga last week. However,this did not stop poachers from killing the rhino and escaping with its horn. The two battalions, comprising about 300 personnel, were deployed to assist the forest guards in vulnerable areas, including Agoratoli, Burapahar and Bagori forest ranges.
On Thursday, soon after gunshots were heard from Arikati, forest guards cordoned off the area and fired at the poachers holed up there. The exchange of fire lasted almost an hour, but the poachers managed to escape with the horn.
Rhino horns are usually smuggled through the porous India-Myanmar border in Manipur’s border town Moreh. The horns are used in traditional Chinese medicine and are in high demand in China and Vietnam. But the items have no medicinal properties.
In the backdrop of the rise in poaching, Asian coordinator for International Rhino Foundation Bibhab Kumar Talukdar said it is high time the forest department reviewed anti-poaching strategy and put in place a stringent and effective mechanism.