Katmandu: Poachers have shot dead a one-horned rhinoceros at a national wildlife park in Nepal, officials said Sunday, spotlighting the threat faced by the rare animals.
Officials on Saturday found the male rhino with its horn gouged out in Chitwan National Park, the country’s biggest rhino conservation area.
“We performed a post-mortem and found that it had been hit by a bullet on its head,” the park’s spokesman Nurendra Aryal told AFP.
Aryal said a team had been set up to investigate the incident and security had been tightened at the district borders.
In September last year a rhino died weeks after poachers shot it in the same park, the first of the rare animals to be killed in the country in over two years.
Thousands of one-horned rhinos once roamed the plains of Nepal, but their numbers have plunged over the past century due to poaching and human encroachment on their habitat.
The population decline was particularly dramatic during Nepal’s 1996-2006 civil war, when soldiers on anti-poaching duties were redeployed to fight the Maoist guerrilla insurgency.
But the country has since made rapid progress in combating the poachers who kill the animals for their prized horns, drawing praise from conservation groups and activists.
The horns fetch huge prices in some Asian countries where they are used for medicines and jewelry.
Nepal is home to about 645 rhinos, out of which about 600 live in Chitwan National Park.
The park is in the process of relocating five rhinos to another conservation area in far-west Nepal to boost their population.
Shant Raj Jnawali, a rhino expert at WWF, said the latest death highlighted the vulnerability of the animals despite anti-poaching efforts from the community, park wardens and army.
“We hope that the investigation will help us devise new strategies to strengthen protection for these animals,” Jnawali said.
Rhino poaching carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail and a 100,000-rupee ($1,000) fine.
Rare one-horned rhino killed by poachers in Nepal
Rare one-horned rhino killed by poachers in Nepal
London police using withdrawn powers to clamp down on pro-Palestine rallies: Probe
- ‘Cumulative disruption’ cited to ban, reroute rallies but power granted by concept withdrawn by Court of Appeal in May
- Network for Police Monitoring: This demonstrates ‘ongoing crackdown on protest’ that has reached ‘alarming point’
LONDON: London’s Metropolitan Police have used powers that have been withdrawn to clamp down on pro-Palestine rallies in the capital, legal experts have said.
The Guardian and Liberty Investigates obtained evidence that police officers had imposed restrictions on at least two protests based on the principle of “cumulative disruption.” But that power was withdrawn by the Court of Appeal in May, according to legal experts.
All references to cumulative disruption have been removed from relevant legislation, yet the Home Office and the Met continue to insist that police officers retain the power to consider the concept when suppressing protests.
On May 7, five days after the powers were withdrawn, the Met banned a Jewish pro-Palestine group from holding its weekly rally in north London, citing the cumulative impact on the neighborhood’s Jewish community.
Last month, the Met forced the Palestine Coalition to change the route of its rally on three days’ notice, highlighting the cumulative impact on businesses during Black Friday weekend.
Raj Chada, a partner at Hodge, Jones & Allen and a leading criminal lawyer, said: “There is no reference to cumulative disruption in the original (legislation). The regulations that introduced this concept were quashed in May 2025, so I fail to see how this can still be the approach taken by police. There is no legal basis for this whatsoever.”
The Met appeared “not to care” if it was acting within the law, the Network for Police Monitoring said, adding that the revelation surrounding “cumulative disruption” demonstrated an “ongoing crackdown on protest” that had reached an “alarming point” by police in London.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans in October to reintroduce the power to consider cumulative impact in toughened form.
But Nick Glynn, a retired senior officer from Leicestershire Police, said: “The police have too many protest powers already and they definitely don’t need any more. If they are provided with them, they not only use them (but) as in this case, they stretch them.
“They go beyond what was intended. The right to protest is sacrosanct and more stifling of protest makes democracy worth less.”
Cumulative disruption was regularly considered and employed in regulations if protests met the threshold of causing “serious disruption to the life of the community.”
The Court of Appeal withdrew the power following a legal challenge by human rights group Liberty.
Ben Jamal, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s director, was reportedly told by Alison Heydari, the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner, that her decision on imposing protest regulations “will be purely around the cumulative effect of your protests.”
She reportedly added that “this is not just about Saturday’s protest but it’s a combination of all the impacts of all the processions so far,” referencing “serious disruption” to the business community.
“You’ve used this route in November 2024, and you’ve used it a few times before then as well. So, there is an impact.”
The repeated disruption to PSC-hosted marches, the largest pro-Palestine events in London, was a “demobilizer,” Jamal said.
It also caused confusion about march starting points and led to protesters being harassed by police officers who accused them of violating protest conditions, he added.
A Met spokesperson told The Guardian: “The outcome of the judicial review does not prevent senior officers from considering the cumulative impact of protest on the life of communities.
“To determine the extent of disruption that may result from a particular protest, it is, of course, important to consider the circumstances in which that protest is to be held, including any existing disruption an affected community is already experiencing.
“We recognise the importance of the right to protest. We also recognise our responsibility to use our powers to ensure that protest does not result in serious disorder or serious disruption. We use those powers lawfully and will continue to do so.”
