Dibrugarh: A elephant was killed in a shootout between forest guards and wood smugglers at the Joypur Wildlife Range at Died Patkai National Park in the Districts of Assam on Sunday.
The source said the incident was revealed on Tuesday when forest guards found elephat carcasses in dense forests at the Pradesh Assam-Arunachal border.
Confirming the incident, Dirrugarh Division Forest Officer (DFO) Pradipta recently said on Wednesday that the elephant was brought by smugglers to transport logged illegally.
“A forest guard team rushed to the area as soon as we got information that wood smugglers tell the tree in the forest using a machine.
When he saw the guard, smugglers opened fire on fire.
Forest guards shot back.
In a shootout, the elephant was hit by a bullet and die on Where did he fall.
No one from our side was injured.
Smugglers managed to escape under the cover of thick forests, “Bandarah said.
A postmortem elephant was carried out on Tuesday according to the SOP after that the chaos was discarded.
Forest officials said the smugglers came from Arunachal Pradesh and even NSCN cadres could be involved.
“Wood smugglers have come from Arunachal’s side and they use a large machine to cut the tree.
We suspect the involvement of NSCN.
We regularly patrolled the area but smugglers smuggle at night to fall trees,” he added.
Mridu Paban Phukan, a local environment lover, said that for many years of smugglers from Arunachal Pradesh had been involved in the logging of illegal trees and timber smuggling in the range of Joypur wildlife which exceeded Assam-Arunachal’s border.
“Many times, this problem was brought to pay attention to the district government but nothing was done to resolve this problem.
Wood smugglers boldly entered the Assam Forest area in the daytime with a machine to cut trees.
Many illegal saw factories are functioning on the Assam-border Arunachal, “he thought.