Saureesh Sahai, Dudhwa Buffer Zone deputy director, said forest officials retrieved the carcass from the village in the Palia tehsil and sent it to the range headquarters, news agency PTI reported.
The Indian rhinoceros falls under the ‘vulnerable’ category of species in the Red List of threatened species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The two-metre (eight-foot) reptile from a nearby nature reserve turned up in the village of Midania in impoverished Uttar Pradesh state after monsoon flooding on Tuesday, officials said.
A fire arm was seized from Randhawa, whose full name is Jyotinder Singh Randhawa, field officer Ramesh Pandey said.