The Assam forest department has urged the Centre to take action against an RTI activist who, by “falsely” alleging that it inflated the number of rhinos in the Kaziranga National Park, sought to bring disrepute to the KNP. In reply to a letter to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Assam's Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force, M K Yadav, asserted that RTI activist Rohit Choudhury has “misread” the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) followed in rhino census. Choudhury had written to the ministry on Wednesday that the Assam forest department inflated the rhino population in KNP in its 2022 census, putting the figure at 2,634 when it should have been 2,042. Terming this a "strange procedural deviation", he also alleged that the enumerators’ data have been deleted.