File picture of an arrested poacher with a rhino horn

Guwahati, Jan. 28: The standard advice to smell a rhino horn to know if it is real or not has made con artists come up with fake substitutes made of wood and dry bamboo root with a little frog meat rubbed in for the authentic “odour”.

In the clandestine world of rhino horn smuggling, buyers are always in a hurry and usually go by the smell. And horn traders are making the most of it.

The “markets” are now flooded with these wooden horns and few can tell the real from the fake.

A source in the forest department revealed the recipe: wood, dry bamboo root modified by using lac.

“Meat of frogs and other animals is also rubbed on the fake horn to replicate the smell of a rhino horn,” the source said.

The rhino horn — which is in heavy demand in south Asian and middle-east countries — is prized for its supposedly aphrodisiac and unproven medicinal qualities.

This alternative market came to light with the recovery of a fake rhino horn from Bokakhat town near Kaziranga National Park last night.

Two persons, Mrigangshu Kalita and Ajit Bora, were also apprehended from Bokakhat when they were about to strike a deal. Kalita, however, managed to give police the slip and escaped under cover of darkness.

Bora hails from Garmurh in Bokakhat, while Kalita hails from Jorhat district and had been staying in a rented house in Bokakhat.

Acting on specific information, a team of forest officials set up a decoy and the duo were apprehended while they were waiting to meet a buyer.

“We did not realise that the horn recovered from them was a fake one until we brought it to the forest range office and examined it,” a forest official said. “We are interrogating Ajit, more things will come to light,” he said.

Forest department sources said there has been a spurt in demand for rhino horns in the international market recently.

Assam has witnessed the death of four rhinos this year, two each at Kaziranga and Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park.

The Telegraph had recently reported about a group of buyers from Bhutan camping at Mangoldoi town near Orang to buy the horn of a rhino which was killed at the park on January 10.

A forest official, however, said the only positive side to the development is that buyers would now think twice before buying a rhino horn from Assam.