A man from Manipur travelled over 880km through four states to “execute” a poaching operation in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park (KNP) on January 21, police said on Saturday.

A female and a male rhino were “shot” with an AK-47 rifle by the “shooter” from Manipur at Maklong under the Agaratoli Range of the Kaziranga National Park.

The carcass of the female rhino with its horn removed was detected on January 22, while the second carcass was detected a kilometre away on Friday, the police said.

One of the main accused, 35-year-old Jogu Pegu, was arrested on Friday evening in the joint operation launched by the police and forest department personnel to crack the case and was remanded in police custody for seven days.

The police said Pegu was spotted with the man from Manipur, whose details were not shared, on a motorcycle in the area before the incident.

The “AK 47 with one magazine and 13 rounds of ammunition” used for killing the rhinos was “found” at the residence of one Haren Kaman under the Kamargaon police station and one of the horns along with the nasal bone from the residence of Pegu, the police said.

Pegu has claimed one Robin Pegu was the “main mastermind”, who had gone to Dimapur in Nagaland to fetch the Manipur shooter by bus on January 19 and he also “accompanied” the shooter back to Dimapur on January 22 after the operation was executed.

Pegu claimed the man from Manipur “killed” the two rhinos and he “removed the horn with an axe”.

The police said the shooter was from Senapati district of Manipur. He left home on January 15 and passed through Churachandpur (Manipur), Champhai, Aizawl (Mizoram), Silchar, Haflong (Assam), Dimapur (Nagaland), Dergaon (Assam) to reach Kaziranga. He reached Dimapur on January 19 from where he was escorted by Robin Pegu to Dergaon on January 20. From Dergaon, Jogu Pegu escorted him to Kaziranga.

The police said efforts were on to recover the second horn and apprehend all the culprits.