NEW DELHI: India has vowed “swift action” after a cheetah was shot dead, the first such killing since the country began reintroducing the animals in 2022, the government said on Wednesday.

The environment ministry said it had ordered a “high-level team for an on-ground investigation” into the shooting of the 19-month-old male, treating the incident with “utmost gravity”. The India-born cheetah — whose mother was among those introduced to India from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa as part of efforts to restore the planet’s fastest land animal — was shot as it prowled in forests outside a protected national park.

Asiatic cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952. The critically endangered subspecies, once found across the Middle East, Central Asia and India, now survives in very small numbers in Iran. Their African cousins were first reintroduced in September 2022 to India, to the Kuno National Park, 300 kilometres south of New Delhi.

The wounded cheetah was picked up on Sunday in forests in Madhya Pradesh state, outside Kuno’s boundaries, and taken for veterinary care.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2026