A haul of nearly 2,500 rhinoceros horns was set on fire on Wednesday in India's northeastern state of Assam to mark World Rhino Day. It aimed to convey an anti-poaching message and spread public awareness that these horns don't have any medicinal properties.
The public event was attended by Assam State Chief Himanta Biswa Sarma and other state ministers.
“This is the largest public destruction of the stockpile of horns of the Greater One-Horned rhino and it aimed to propagate and reinforce the fact that rhinos horns do not have any medicinal value,” Assam Environment Minister Parimal Suklabaidya stated on the occasion.
The one-horn rhino, also known as the Indian rhinoceros, is a rare species that was once endemic in the region. They've almost been wiped out by poachers, who harvest their horns.
Many people over the centuries have believed that rhino horns have medicinal properties.
Ahead of the event, the state forest department had announced that of the 2,623 rhino horns recovered or collected between 1979 and 2021, 2,479 will be destroyed, while 94 will be preserved for academic purposes at Kaziranga National Park; 29 are associated with court cases. The remaining 21 are said to be fake horns.