Poachers silenced, hear the call of the wild at Jaldapara National Park again

India Today

5 days ago

At dawn, the forests of Jaldapara National Park in West Bengal stir to life. Elephants trumpet across misty grasslands. Rhinos tread ancient trails. Above it all, a heavy silence lingers—a silence won through blood, perseverance and a battle fought far from public view.For years, a shadow stalked these woods: Rikoch Narjinary, one of India's most elusive and notorious wildlife poachers. Leading a ruthless syndicate armed with military-grade weaponry, Rikoch's gang turned the sanctuaries of north Bengal and India's Northeast into hunting grounds. Rhinos, elephants, leopards—none was spared in the pursuit of profit.advertisementBut in March last year, that shadow finally fell. After a painstaking, seven-day operation, blending intelligence, surveillance and daring fieldwork, forest officers and police teams captured Rikoch in Assam's Kamrup district. It was a quiet arrest, one that ended a decade-long reign of terror that had bled the forests dry.'Poachers like Rikoch Narjinary and his associates posed a real threat to our conservation efforts,' says Novojit Dey, assistant wildlife warden of Jaldapara National Park. 'For monetary gain, they killed countless animals, such as rhinos and elephants, across the entire northeastern part of India and north Bengal. Their conviction will send a strong message to poachers that if you choose Jaldapara as your hunting ground, we will hunt you down.'
For the law enforcers, it was not merely an arrest; it was a dismantling of a brutal empire. Rikoch's syndicate operated like a paramilitary force. Armed with sniper rifles, AK-47 rifles, night-vision equipment and high-calibre hunting guns, they executed daring strikes deep inside protected reserves. Recruits came from Assam, Manipur and Bengal. Horns were smuggled across porous borders into Myanmar, reaching clandestine markets beyond.Their most notorious shooter, Leken Basumatary, brought down rhinos with cold precision— a single horn reportedly fetching Rs 36 lakh. The Ray brothers—Ranjit, Paresh and Barun—served as the backbone of the strike teams while Basumatary supplied weapons and managed logistics.Even a prison sentence could not halt Rikoch. After being jailed in 2016 for carrying an AK-47, he emerged more cunning, slipping into the wild, using new identities, languages and burner phones to stay ahead of the law. As enforcement agencies intensified their hunt, he simply melted into the forests of Manipur or the riverine islands of Assam.His capture was a masterstroke of patience and precision. Tracking a bank-linked mobile number, officers conducted ground reconnaissance, verified identities with covert photography, and secured a fresh arrest warrant under a veil of secrecy. Any leak could have sabotaged the operation.'This was a movie-like operation,' said Parveen Kaswan, an Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer in charge of the Jaldapara National Park, who led the mission. 'It involved technical intelligence, informers, ground teams and absolute professionalism. Bringing Rikoch and his gang down has changed the conservation landscape of North Bengal,' he said.Convictions this April marked the fall of the syndicate's core. Seven key members were sentenced to four years' imprisonment and fined Rs 40,000 each. Although Rikoch initially received only a one-year term in one case, two further trials await him—and forest officials are pushing for the maximum seven-year sentence.advertisementThe wider war against wildlife crime also pressed on. Over 21 criminals were arrested in the past year alone, with significant seizures of wildlife contraband. Fifteen more individuals unrelated to Rikoch's group faced convictions as enforcement tightened across the entire region.The battle took its toll. Leken, the syndicate's deadliest asset, died in custody last December after providing critical intelligence that helped bring the network down. Basumatary faced convictions under both wildlife and narcotics laws, reflecting the tangled web of crime in which the gang operated.Today, Jaldapara's wilderness breathes easier. The heavy bootprints of poachers have faded from the trails. Rhinos wallow undisturbed in muddy pools. Herds of elephants drift like grey ghosts through grasslands bathed in golden light.The scars of the past remain—but so too does a new spirit of vigilance. In this corner of India, the hunters have been hunted, and the wild has won a precious reprieve.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends
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