DIBRUGARH: The impunity with which poachers are killing wild animals, especially the one–horned rhinoceros in the State, is worrying. The recovery of the headless carcass of an elephant at Charaipung range reinforces the ineffectiveness of the wildlife protection measures of the forest department.

Since 2007, 93 rhinos have been killed, 12 of them in the last two months. In September last year, five rhinos were killed, two on consecutive days. The discovery of a rhino whose horn had been cut away while it was left to die a slow death last year, sent shock waves but since then, more such killings with the same modus operandi have taken place.