Jorhat, Jan. 23: Forest guards at the Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park last night successfully tracked and brought back a one-horned rhino, which had strayed out of the park into what is considered to be poachers’ territory.

A few days ago, the guards had successfully prevented a group of poachers from killing rhinos inside the park.

The divisional forest officer of Orang National Park, Sushil Daila, said the adult male rhino, nearly 15, strayed out of the national park yesterday around 4am through the southern boundary of the park after crossing the Brahmaputra.

“The staff of Ramkong camp had seen the rhino going out of the park but could not drive it back because of the distance. A team of 15 armed staff from Ramkong, Jhaoni, Boat and Marasali camps was assigned the task of bringing it back to the park. The team set out on boats and later followed the rhino’s spoor on foot. The territorial forest staff of Nagaon division was also asked to guard the rhino, which was heading towards Lahorighat in Morigaon district,” Daila said.

The rhino, however, stopped at places where poachers had been killed or arrested earlier. It strayed into Lahori char, where a poacher named Md Kasem Ali came from.

He was killed in an encounter with the forest staff in September 2011 inside Orang National Park.

It then went to Jaogoria char from where a poacher named Md Rustum Ali had been arrested with a .303 rifle and ammunition by the Orang forest staff in October 2011.

The staff had to fire in the air when the rhino tried to charge at their colleague, Md Abu Baqqar Siddique, at Bogi char.

They drove the rhino back safely into the park through the river route between Ramkong and Bantapu around 7 in the evening.

“We were on tenterhooks the whole day, as the rhino had virtually entered the poachers’ den. Had our staff not followed it closely, there was every possibility of poachers targeting it with ease,” Daila said.

In the past two years, there have been four cases of rhinos straying out of the national park. Each time, they have been brought back safely, sometimes after two or three days.

Daila added that last Wednesday, poachers had entered the park through the south-western boundary.

“They wanted to kill a rhino near a waterhole. The vigilant staff noticed their footprints on the same day and tried to arrest them, following their foot trail. The staff reached a point in dense and tall ikora grassland where the poachers had spent some time. Eatables like half-eaten tomatoes, taamul and chira were found at the site. The footprints became muddled beyond that point,” Daila said.

A combing operation was launched using foot patrols, vehicles, boats and elephants after all the camps had been alerted through wireless.

A joint team of forest staff from Mangaldoi wildlife division and Darrang police raided the house of prime suspect Md Idris under Dalgaon police station, who was found to be absconding at the time of the raid.

Another team from the division led by Daila also reached the park within hours for overall supervision of operations.

“In spite of all measures, the poachers who were hiding in dense jungles could not be located. We anticipated that they were waiting for sunset and managed to escape in the night taking advantage of darkness and fog, but we thwarted their attempts at killing a rhino,” Daila said.

A horn reportedly fetches an unprecedented price of Rs 40 lakh per kg these days in domestic wildlife article markets.