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The authorities at a national park in India protect the wildlife by shooting suspected poachers dead. But has the war against poaching gone too far?
Kaziranga National Park is an incredible story of conservation success.
There were just a handful of Indian one-horned rhinoceros left when the park was set up a century ago in Assam, in India's far east. Now there are more than 2,400 - two-thirds of the entire world population.
This is where David Attenborough's team came to film for Planet Earth II. William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, came here last year.
But the way the park protects the animals is controversial. Its rangers have been given the kind of powers to shoot and kill normally only conferred on armed forces policing civil unrest.
At one stage the park rangers were killing an average of two people every month - more than 20 people a year. Indeed, in 2015 more people were shot dead by park guards than rhinos were killed by poachers.
Innocent villagers, mostly tribal people, have been caught up in the conflict.
Rhinos need protection. Rhino horn can fetch very high prices in Vietnam and China where it is sold as a miracle cure for everything from cancer to erectile dysfunction. Street vendors charge as much as $6,000 for 100g - making it considerably more expensive than gold.
Indian rhinos have smaller horns than those of African rhinos, but reportedly they are marketed as being far more potent.
But how far should we go to protect these endangered animals?
I ask two guards what they were told to do if they encountered poachers in the park.
"The instruction is whenever you see the poachers or hunters, we should start our guns and hunt them," Avdesh explains without hesitation.
"You shoot them?" I ask.
"Yah, yah. Fully ordered to shoot them. Whenever you see the poachers or any people during night-time we are ordered to shoot them."
Avdesh says he has shot at people twice in the four years he has been a guard, but has never killed anybody. He knows, however, there are unlikely to be any consequences for him if he did.
The government has granted the guards at Kaziranga extraordinary powers that give them considerable protection against prosecution if they shoot and kill people in the park.
Critics say guards like Avdesh and Jibeshwar are effectively being told to carry out "extrajudicial executions".
Getting figures for how many people are killed in the park is surprisingly difficult.
"We don't keep each and every account," says a senior official in India's Forest Department, which oversees the country's national parks.
The director of the park, Dr Satyendra Singh, is based at the park's impressive colonial-era headquarters.
He talks about the difficulties of tackling poachers in the park, explaining that the poaching gangs recruit local people to help them get into the park but that the actual "shooters" - the men who kill the rhinos - tend to come from neighbouring states.
He says the term "shoot-on-sight" does not accurately describe how he orders the forest rangers to deal with suspected poachers.
Find out more
Our World: Killing for Conservation is broadcast at 21:30 GMT on Saturday 11 February on the BBC News Channel and this weekend on BBC World News
"First we warn them - who are you? But if they resort to firing we have to kill them. First we try to arrest them, so that we get the information, what are the linkages, who are others in the gang?"
Dr Singh reveals that just in the past three years, 50 poachers have been killed. He says it reflects how many people in the local community have been lured into the trade as rhino horn prices have risen. As many as 300 locals are involved in poaching, he believes.
For the people who live around Kaziranga the rising death toll has become a major issue.
Kaziranga is densely populated, like the rest of India. Many of the communities here are tribal groups that have lived in or alongside the forest for centuries, collecting firewood as well as herbs and other plants from it. They say increasing numbers of innocent villagers are being shot.
In one of the villages that borders the park live Kachu Kealing and his wife. Their son, Goanburah, was shot by forest guards in December 2013.
The only picture they have of him is a fuzzy reproduction of the young man's face.
Goanburah had been looking after the family's two cows. His father believes they strayed into the park and his son - who had severe learning difficulties - went in to try and find them. It is an easy mistake to make. There are no fences or signs marking the edge of the park, it just merges seamlessly into the surrounding countryside and fields.
The park authorities say guards shot Goanburah inside the forest reserve when he did not respond to a warning.
"He could barely do up his own trousers or his shoes," his father says, "everyone knew him in the area because he was so disabled."
Kachu Kealing does not believe there is any action he can take now, especially given the unusual protection park guards have from prosecution. "I haven't filed a court case. I'm a poor man, I can't afford to take them on."
Conservation efforts in India tend to focus on protecting a few emblematic species. The fight to preserve them is stacked high with patriotic sentiment. Rhinos and tigers have become potent national symbols.
Add to this the fact that Kaziranga is the region's principal tourist attraction - its 170,000 or more annual visitors spend good money here - and it is easy to see why the park feels political pressure to tackle its poaching problem head on.
In 2013, when the number of rhinos killed by poachers more than doubled to 27, local politicians demanded action. The then head of the park was happy to oblige.
MK Yadava wrote a report which detailed his strategy for tackling poaching in Kaziranga. He proposed there should be no unauthorised entry whatsoever. Anyone found within the park, he said, "must obey or be killed".
"Kill the unwanted," should be the guiding principle for the guards, he recommended.
He explained his belief that environmental crimes, including poaching, are more serious that murder. "They erode," he said, "the very root of existence of all civilizations on this earth silently."
And he backed up his tough words with action, putting this uncompromising doctrine into practice in the park.
The numbers of people killed rose dramatically. From 2013 to 2014 the number of alleged poachers shot dead in the park leapt from five to 22. In 2015 Kaziranga killed more people in the park than poachers killed rhinos - 23 people lost their lives compared to just 17 rhinos.
And, as the park's battle against poaching gathered in intensity, there were to be other casualties.
In July last year, seven-year-old Akash Orang was making his way home along the main track through the village, which borders the park.
His voice falters as he recounts what happened next. "I was coming back from the shop. The forest guards were shouting, 'Rhinoceros! Rhinoceros!'" He pauses. "Then they suddenly shot me."
The gunshot blasted away most of the calf muscle on his right leg. The injuries were so serious he had to be rushed to Assam's main hospital five hours away.
He was there for five months and had dozens of operations but, despite the hospital's efforts, Akash can still barely walk.
His father, Dilip Orang, bends down and removes the bandage from the boy's leg to display the wound. His leg appears to be stripped of its skin - the calf muscle is bunched into tight ball. It doesn't flex. "They took the muscle from here and grafted it here," he says. "But it hasn't worked very well. Just look at it."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-38909512
