From our Correspondent
JORHAT, July 30: In a sensational turn of events in the rhino horn recovery case, prime accused Tarun Ganak surrendered himself to the police at Numaligarh Police Station yesterday. After his surrender, Ganak, in his confessional statement, said “A good number of forest officials employed in the Kaziranga National Park are involved in rhino poaching. Also, forest officials engaged as anti-poaching staff have been carrying on with the clandestine business for quite a long time.”
Ganak, however, refused to divulge the names of the officials involved in the racket in front of mediapersons. But, he said that since the rhino horn was recovered by the police on May 17, last, at Numaligarh, he was allegedly subjected to umpteen number of threatening by the forest officials involved in the case to hush up the matter.
Seven persons were arrested by Numaligarh Police at Labanghat area on NH-39 on May 17, last, but Ganak escaped. He said, “After I escaped, I was subjected to assault and threatening by forest officials who were demanding that their names be freed of the accusation.”
Numaligarh Police Out Post in-charge Prafulla Kumar Das told The Sentinel that the confessional statement of the prime accused of the case threw light to the fact that a number of top forest officials were involved in rhino poaching in the national park. Therefore, the police will conduct an investigation against these forest officials soon.
Meanwhile, forest officers of the KNP have been trying to prove that Tarun Ganak was not an employee of the park, when police recovered the horn. Talking to The Sentinel, Kaziranga director Surajit Dutta said although the accused person was a casual employee of the park but, as per the official records, he was not working in the park for the last few months.