While four highly-endangered one-horned rhinos, including a three-year-old calf, have been killed by poachers in and around the 1,000-sq km National Park in central Assam in the New Year, as many as 21 rhinos had fallen victim to the guns of poachers who managed to sneak in and escape after removing their horns.

Assam Forest and Environment Minister Rockybul Hussain called an urgent meeting of top-ranking forest and wildlife officials on Tuesday morning in the wake of Sunday’s killing of a female rhino and her calf. State Forest Commissioner BB Hagjer has been named the head of a 12-member high-powered committee that has been asked to proceed to Kaziranga and assess the ground situation.

Eminent environmentalist PC Bhattacharyya of WWT, HK Choudhury of Wildlife Trust of India and Amit Sharma of WWF have also been included in the panel.

“We are highly concerned about the spurt in killing (of rhinos) in Kaziranga in the recent months. That is why we have constituted the committee to find out the loopholes and suggest measures to stop further recurrence of such incidents,” Hussain said.

An Assam Government spokesman said the committee has been asked to also suggest remedial measures so that incidents of poaching could be completely stopped. “Poaching of rhinos in Kaziranga is not just a conservation issue. It has become a law and order problem with poachers sneaking in from Nagaland as well as from Karbi Anglong district,” the Government spokesman said.

State Chief Wildlife Warden MC Malakar said that while a number of poachers have been killed by forest guards in encounters in and around the National Park in the past few years, a new batch of poachers is suspected to have become active in the past few months.

“Between 1998 and 2006 several poachers were killed and we were able to check the incidents of poaching. But going by the sudden increase in poaching, it appears that some new elements have started targeting the Kaziranga rhinos,” Malakar told The Indian Express.

While poachers had killed as many as 47 rhinos in and around Kaziranga between 1998 and 2006, they managed to wipe out 21 rhinos in 2007 alone. This year, one rhino was killed on January 7, followed by a mother and a calf on January 19.

Meanwhile, several leading NGOs working in the field of wildlife conservation on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi to intervene so that the Kaziranga rhinos could be saved.

“While Kaziranga has been recognised the world over as one of the best-managed national parks, rhino poaching has suddenly increased at an alarming rate,” the NGOs said in letters sent to Singh and Gandhi.

NGOs also asked the Prime Minister to seek an explanation from Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and State Forest Minister on rhino poaching.

Kaziranga, it may be recalled, is currently facing a shortage of over 100 forest guards against a sanctioned strength of 487. The state Government had promised 50 armed Home Guard personnel in April last year, but only 20 were provided.

The state Government had in April last year announced an “emergency action plan” to check poaching in the national park. It has also set up Wildlife Crime Control Committees at the district level in Nagaon and Golaghat, the two districts under which Kaziranga falls.