Bhopal: The cub was still alive when forest staff found it. Five pellets were inside its body. It died two days later.
Madhya Pradesh's Special Task Force has arrested two brothers for allegedly shooting the 19-month-old male cheetah cub, officially known as Kuno Nirva Gaurav or KNG-22, outside the Kuno National Park, and recovered the licensed double-barrel gun used in the crime, police said on Monday.
The cub was rescued in an injured condition from compartment No. 748 of the Sheopur forest division on October 25. Doctors found five pellets inside it, an STF officer said. It died during treatment two days later, on October 27.
A four-member STF team arrested Bhagwan Singh, a resident of Morena district, on October 31. His brother, Pritam Singh, was arrested later the same day. Both were remanded in two-day judicial custody on October 31 and produced before the court again on Monday, which sent them to judicial custody.
During interrogation, Bhagwan Singh allegedly confessed that on October 24 he and his brother had gone into the forest to hunt a wild boar. When they spotted the cheetah, he fired at it and fled. A case has been registered against both under Sections 9 and 51 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as amended in 2022.
The officer said investigators are also looking at the illegal wildlife trade and organised crime angle. Eight forest officials of Morena and Sheopur have been suspended for neglect of duty.
The death matters beyond the two arrests. KNG-22 is the first cheetah to be shot dead in India since the animals were brought back to the country four years ago, under a project that has been watched closely by conservationists and by the government as a flagship.
The arrest also raises a question the forest department will have to answer: how a licensed hunting weapon was carried into a protected forest area and fired at an animal that was being monitored by radio collar and field staff.