- Bhagwan confessed shooting cheetah with brother Pritam.
Sheopur (MP): Two men were arrested for alleged involvement in last month’s shooting of a cheetah in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district, and the double-barrel muzzle-loading gun used in the crime has been recovered, forest department officials said on Monday.
The 19-month-old Indian-born cheetah, officially known as Kuno Nirva Gaurav or KNG-22, was found injured in compartment number 748 of the Sheopur forest division on October 25, and died after two days of treatment, Cheetah project director Uttam Sharma told PTI from Kuno.
Officials said pellets from a firearm were found in the cheetah’s body during a surgical procedure, prompting the state government to constitute a four-member Special Task Force (STF) of forest department and police personnel to investigate the incident.
The STF, with assistance from Morena police and forest departments of Sheopur and Morena, developed an informer network and deployed a dog squad as part of its extensive searches in the forest, they added.
The probe led to the arrest of Bhagwan Singh, a resident of Navalpura-Behrara village in Morena district, on October 31, who was then remanded in two-day forest and police custody by a court in Vijaypur in Sheopur district, officials said.
During questioning, Singh allegedly told investigators that he had gone with his brother Pritam Singh to a forest near Nitanwas village in Vijaypur on October 24 to hunt, they said.
When a cheetah was spotted in the area, he allegedly fired at it with his licensed double-barrel muzzle-loading gun and fled, the officials said, quoting information given by Bhagwan Singh.
The STF then took Pritam Singh into custody, and the firearm used in the crime was recovered from Morena forest division, they said.
A case has been registered against the siblings under sections 9 and 51 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act for hunting and other offences, the officials said.
The probe has not found any involvement of illegal wildlife trade or organised wildlife crime networks, they said.
KNG-22 was born second in the second litter (hence 22) of Nirva, brought to India from South Africa on February 18, 2023. Its father Gaurav, now dead, was imported from Namibia on September 17, 2022.
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