Guwahati: In a mockery of the so-called tight security arrangements, poachers killed yet another one-horned rhino in Assam's Kaziranga National Park as British royal couple Prince William and Kate Middleton were spending the night at a resort near the national park.
According to reports, the British Royal couple, who visited the Kaziranga National Park in a jeep safari on Wednesday, were just around 12 miles away from the incident site when the animal was killed.
Duchess of Cambridge feeds a rhino calf during a visit to the Centre for Wildlif
“Our forest guards who rushed to the spot on hearing gunshots were engaged in an exchange of fire with the poachers, but the culprits managed to escape under the cover of darkness,” the Kaziranga divisional forest officer Subhashis Das said.
"We recovered the carcass of a rhino from the Burhapahar range of the park on Thursday morning. The poachers took away the horn," Das added.
This was the seventh rhino killed in the 480 sq km national park this year. Last year, 17 rhino lost their lives.
In Kazinranga poaching has become a major issue. There are more than 2,400 one-horned rhinos killed till date.
On Wednesday morning, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had visited the Bagori range of the park, 30 km from the Burhapahar range.
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