The Assam Government on Thursday started the much-awaited process of authentication of rhino horns kept in the custody of the Government, even as a leading wildlife conservation organisation of the State urged the Government to maintain transparency in the process.
Several civil society organisations in Assam have been demanding the verification of the one-horned rhino horns in Government custody due to suspicion that the traders of rhino horns and poachers have replaced the original horns in Government custody by bribing a section of the forest officials and sold them in international market.
The Assam Government had recently instituted the Rhino Horn Verification Committee to authenticate all the horns kept in the custody of the Government since 1980.
The Committee held its first sitting at the circuit house of Golaghat district on Thursday and started physically verifying the genuineness of every single rhino horns with the help of the Directorate of Forensic Science.
“Each of the rhino horns stored in the state treasury, already have a Government of India (GOI) serial number and that was tallied today while preparing the inventory. Weights and photographs of the horns were also taken. For scientific evaluation, the original weight and present weight have also been recorded. The rhino horns were physically examined by the experts of the committee. Whenever it was necessary, the opinion of the forensic scientists were sought, who had opened a micro lab in the verification room itself,” a member of the committee.
The Committee observed that the rhinos horns were found in very good condition and there were negligible decay as each of them were wrapped in plastic bags. Some of the rhino horns were as big as 1.615 kg found in 1992 in Bagori range while the smallest one weighed 20 gram,” he said.
It may be mentioned here that Kaziranga National Park alone lose around 100 rhinos annually due to normal age old death, infighting, mud stuck, matting, tiger attack and flood, besides poaching.
Meanwhile, prominent wildlife organisation of Assam, Nature’s Beckon and Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) while appreciating the latest initiative to start the process of verification of rhino horns kept in the custody of forest department and different treasuries in the state urged strongly the government to make public the number of rhino horns in its custody since 1980. “The people of Assam also must know how much rhino horns were there in the custody of the forest department and the treasuries of Assam till 1980 (those recovered before the year), and those recovered after 1980,” said a statement issued by Nature’s Beckon and JFA on Thursday.
It said that the issue of one-horned rhinos and rhino horns are not only an environmental issue but a a social concern involving a number of conservation and civil society groups and hence the state government must reveal the modalities or mechanism followed while verifying the rhino horns.
“We also appeal to the state government to inform the people of Assam about the credentials of the members of the Rhino Horn Verification Committee. Since the issue of rhino horn has been a social and emotional issue, the people should know the credentials about the individuals engaged in the process of verification of rhino horns,” the statement said.