Beware of this animal park! 'shoot on sight' is the order

Assam - The forest staff in Kaziranga have been given the license to shoot anybody they suspect to be a poacher.

A BBC documentary has alleged that the Kaziranga National Park in India's Assam state has an alarming 'shoot on sight' order for poachers.
Within Assam, rhinos are concentrated within Kaziranga park, with a few in Pobitara wildlife sanctuary. Kaziranga is home to more than 91 per cent of Assam's rhinos-and more than 80 per cent of India's count-with a 2015 population census by Kaziranga park authorities revealing 2,401 rhinos within the park.

A rhino horn could fetch as much as $60,000 per pound in the contraband market in 2015, largely in countries such as China and Vietnam, according to a report in The Washington Times.
Although rhino poaching peaked in India in 2013, when 41 of the herbivores were killed, it has declined since, largely because of better policing and protection by the Assam government and non-governmental organisations NGOs.
Stopping poachers has always been a challenge for authorities of the Kaziranga National Park in Assam. But, the current administration seems to have taken its efforts too far by reportedly issuing shoot at sight orders to forest guards, committing an illegality that needs to be probed immediately.
According to the documentary, forest staff in Kaziranga have been given the license to shoot anybody they suspect to be a poacher. Armed with the carte blanche, the staff has reportedly turned trigger happy, preferring to shoot instead of bringing the suspects to justice. 
In addition to the documentary he's made, Our World: Killing for Conservation, which was broadcast on 11 February, Rowlatt has also written a detailed account of what goes on in the park in the name of anti-poaching measures and conservation, according to The Huffington Post report.
The environment ministry of India feels that the documentary has misrepresented facts on poaching in Kaziranga.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has issued an official memorandum recommending the "blacklisting" of BBC's South Asia correspondent, Justin Rowlatt, for portraying the anti-poaching measures taken by the authorities in a bad light.
But outside the park, transport of poached horns is not adequately tracked, said Joseph, a key factor being regional insurgency. During the 1980s and 1990s, poachers exploited the destruction of park infrastructure during conflicts and killed almost the entire population of rhinos in many of Assam's protected areas, such as Manas, Laokhowa and Burachapori.

If the Kaziranga authorities have allowed their guards to shoot intruders and suspects, it is a gross violation of the law, an illegality being perpetrated in the name of conservation. If guards have been killing with impunity in the fields of Kaziranga, they need to be prosecuted for extra-judicial killings and punished if found guilty.
 In India, rhinos can now be found in parts of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam. In 2012, more than 91 per cent of Indian rhinos lived in Assam, according to WWF-India data.
Rhinos are solitary creatures. Each consumes almost 40 kg of vegetation a day. However, within parks of Assam with a large rhino population, animals have been seen in groups which is an indication of lack of space. These observations are coupled with increasing fights for dominance among rhinos, a competition for available space.
According to some estimates, based on observation, the threshold population of Kaziranga is estimated at 2,500, while Pabitora's threshold is 100. Exceeding carrying capacity also means that the rhinos are more likely to venture out of protected areas, which increases chances of human-animal conflict.

• India