Rhino poaching racket kingpin held in Guwahati

Guwahati: Assam Police's Crime Branch, in a joint operation with state forest department sleuths from Kaziranga National Park (KNP), have nabbed inter-state rhino poaching racket kingpin Tohiykhu Zhimomi alias 'Master' of Dimapur from the city's Six Mile area on Wednesday night. Zhimomi was wanted in at least seven poaching cases at KNP. Immediately after his arrest, forest department sleuths took him into custody for further investigation.Kaziranga divisional forest officer (DFO) Rohini Ballabh Saikia said, "He is known as 'Master' because of his role as a kingpin in the poaching racket. He is wanted in multiple cases of poaching in the park. He will be produced before a local court on Friday." Forest department sleuths are going to seek his remand.Sources said poachers, who were arrested by the forest department earlier, have disclosed that Zhimomi used to instruct, order and provide logistics to them. "He is one of those who controls the cross-border poaching racket from Nagaland. He hires sharpshooters, provides firearms and ensures safe passage to poachers. He is also involved in providing international sellers to rhino horn smugglers. His arrest is vital to unearth the entire chain of poaching racket," a forest department source said.The investigation revealed that Zhimomi was a rhino horn dealer who used to send poachers to Kaziranga whenever he received orders from other countries. After the killing of rhinos, he would take the horns to the Myanmar border through his network in Manipur and Nagaland for selling them.It was the second successive operation by the state police and forest department sleuths within a week. Last Saturday, five of a poaching racket, including a sharpshooter from Nagaland, were nabbed in a joint operation by the state police and the forest department from the Biswanath area, some 230 km from here. The gang was planning to kill rhinos which usually stray out of Kaziranga during the monsoon due to the rising water level. Sharpshooters from Nagaland have been found to be involved in multiple cases of poaching in the last couple of years.