New Delhi: Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park has refused to provide information pertaining to the post-mortem reports of cheetahs that died over the past years under Project Cheetah, according to a report by The Tribune. Park authorities cited national security as the reason for the denial, the wildlife activist who filed the RTIs told The Wire.No info for ‘national security’ reasonsUnder India’s ambitious Project Cheetah, the first batch of eight African cheetahs arrived from Namibia in Kuno in September 2022, followed by 12 cheetahs from South Africa in 2023 and nine from Botswana in 2026. Some of these cheetahs have given birth on Indian soil, and the total number of cheetahs in the Park is now 53.However, over these years, several cheetah deaths have also occurred. The latest was of a cub on October 12; one adult cheetah was found dead near a shallow stream in 2025, while several allegedly died due to septicaemia (a type of blood poisoning) in 2023. Wildlife activist Ajay Dubey had filed requests for information under the Right to Information Act, 2005, with the Wildlife section of the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department in Bhopal for copies of the post-mortems of dead cheetahs in the Park. Dubey had asked for this information as all press releases issued by the Department say that the causes of death of the animals would be ascertained only after a post-mortem.Dubey’s RTI request was transferred to Kuno, and the Park’s Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) responded that information on the post mortems were a matter of national security and hence could not be shared.“How are post-mortem reports a matter of national security,” Dubey told The Wire. “The cheetah, like the tiger and leopard, are under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act. If information on those species can be shared under the RTI Act, why is information on the cheetah exempt from this? Has the government of India agreed to not divulge information under the Memorandums of Understanding signed with these countries where the cheetahs came in from? When I asked for the MoUs, that was denied too,” Dubey said.‘Sad state of affairs’Dubey had also filed other RTIs over the months to ask about the expenses incurred by Park authorities for their overseas trips to Botswana and other African countries as part of Project Cheetah. However, these have also not been made available yet as the Park said that these records were not available.“This is the sad state of affairs, that they cited these reasons for my straightforward questions in the 21st year of the RTI Act of India,” Dubey told The Wire.