Kaziranga, Assam: Poachers decoyed forest guards on Monday, 24 September with diversionary tactics, killed a rhino and escaped with its horn from the Kaziranga National Park(KNP) raising the number of rhino deaths in this park to 17 this year.

The rhino was shot on Monday morning at around 11.25 near Dhoba Camp of the Agoratoli Range inside KNP in the north east Indian Assam state.

As the forest staff heard shots being fired near the Dhanbari Camp in Agoratoli range and rushed to the spot, the poachers took advantage of this diversion and killed the rhino near the Dhoba Camp and fled with its horn.

Rhinos in the famed Kaziranga National Park in the northeastern state of Assam are poached for their horns believed (though not scientifically proved) to act as an analgesic and a revitilizer.

The floods in Kaziranga make rhinos vulnerable to poaching as they seek higher ground move to the margins or outside the boundary of the park. Taking advantage of the floods the poachers, who are highly-organized and well-equipped, sneak into the park or kill the animals near the boundary.

Kaziranga National Park, located in the flood plains of the Brahmaputra river, is home to over 1,700 of the 2,000 surviving greater one-horned rhinocerous (Rhinoceros unicornis) apart from Asian elephants, tigers, many species of deer and the rare Asiatic wild buffalo.