Verification of rhino horns kept in Assam treasuries begins

Verification of rhino horns to check genuineness and updating the complete inventory of horns kept in various treasuries in the custody of Assam government since 1980, began here today.

An expert committee headed by former Information Commissioner M C Malakar, has started the physical verification of the rhino horns at the Golaghat Circuit House to ascertain its genuineness.

Besides the verification committee members, forest officials, who had signed and sealed the trunks during the time of deposition, were invited to check the seal of the trunk and verification would be conducted with the help of the Directorate of Forensic Science, an official statement said.
 

Each rhino horn stored in the state treasury, already have a Government of India (GOI) serial number and that was tallied while preparing the inventory.

Weights and photographs of the horns were taken and for scientific evaluation, the original weight and present weight have also been recorded, the statement said.

The verification process yielded interesting results with the horns being 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 was 20 gram, it said.

On an average year Kaziranga National Park loses around 100 rhinos due to normal age old deaths, infighting, mud stuck, matting, tiger attack and floods.

Assam government had constituted the 12-member Rhino Horn Verification Committee (RHVC) following wide spread suspicion about the genuineness of the rhino horns kept in 13 treasuries of Assam.

The rhino horns were scattered in 12 treasuries of Assam, and Golaghat has the highest number with most from Kaziranga National Park, followed by Nagaon, Tezpur and Guwahati treasuries.