Manipur's Churachandpur hub of illegal rhino horn trade, authorities wary

GUWAHATI:

Churachandpur

in Manipur has taken over Nagaland’s

Dimapur

as the hub of clandestine trade in rhino horns and other wildlife body parts, experts dealing with wildlife crime said. “Now the bulk of the illegal trade in rhino horns is controlled from Churachandpur because of its proximity to Myanmar where the wildlife parts are smuggled to. Dimapur used to be the hub of clandestine trade in rhino horns, but no more now,” said Bibhab Kumar Talukdar, member of Asian rhino specialist group of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Species Survival Commission.

Manipur’s border town Moreh is about 270 km from Churachandpur, also a district located on the south-western part of the state.
Wildlife crime experts said Churachandpur emerged as relatively safer location after enforcement agencies as well various national and international conservation forums started focusing on Dimapur’s seedy trade in rhino horns and other wildlife body parts.
“Two to four-member gang used to control the smuggling racket from Dimapur. Now most of the gang members are old and one of them has died. The young generation of smugglers from Churachandpur has pipped Dimapur’s control on the clandestine trade,” a wildlife crime expert said on the condition of anonymity.

Rhino horns are smuggled through Northeast to Myanmar for meeting the soaring demand in China and Vietnam where the body part is used in traditional medicines. In fact a report by the Asian and African rhino specialist groups of

IUCN-Species Survival Commission

(SSC) and TRAFFIC (a wildlife trade monitoring network) last year pointed out that Myanmar has now become the primary route for smuggling rhino horns from Assam after the Nepal-China route virtually stopped since 2013 following crackdown on rhino poaching networks by authorities in the Himalayan nation.

The recovery of a rhino horn from an accident site at Baihata Chariali in Kamrup district of Assam last month, suspected to have been sourced from

Gorumara National Park

in

West Bengal

, only corroborated that Northeast is now increasingly being used as a conduit for smuggling the wildlife body part to Myanmar, not the Nepal-China route.