VHP Moves Court After Lioness ‘Sita' Housed With Lion ‘Akbar' At Bengal Safari, Park Denies Naming Them

New Delhi: A controversy has erupted over the naming of a lioness brought to Bengal Safari Park from Tripura, as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) alleged that she was called “Sita” and sought a change in her name. The VHP filed a petition before the Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench of Calcutta High Court on Saturday, saying that such a name for an animal could hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus. The VHP also claimed that the lion who came with the lioness was named “Akbar”, and demanded that no animal in any zoo should be named after any god or goddess of any faith in the future.

The petition, filed by the VHP’s north Bengal unit, is likely to be heard by a single bench of the court on February 20, according to the petitioner’s lawyer Subhankar Dutta. However, the park authorities denied that they had given any name to the two lions, who arrived at the park on February 12 as part of an animal exchange programme.

They said that the official naming of the lions was yet to be done, and that the media reports about their names were baseless. They also said that the lions had markings of IL26 and IL27 on their bodies, which were not names but identification codes.