The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has escalated its objections to the naming of a lioness as “Sita” and a male lion as “Akbar” at the North Bengal Wild Animals Park in Siliguri, by initiating legal action at the Circuit Bench of Calcutta High Court in Jalpaiguri district.
The controversy erupted following the transfer of the two big cats from Tripura’s Sepahijala Zoo as part of an animal exchange program on February 12.
In a writ petition filed on Friday (February 16), the VHP condemned the names as “irrational,” “illogical,” and “tantamount to blasphemy,” asserting that they offended religious sentiments. The hearing is scheduled for February 20 before Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya.
Dulal Chandra Roy, the head of VHP’s Jalpaiguri unit, stated that the organisation had previously raised objections to the names with state forest authorities before resorting to legal measures.
VHP national spokesperson Vinod Bansal stressed the urgency of the matter, urging the court to take swift action, including renaming the lioness and refraining from using religious identifiers for animals in zoological parks.
Advocate Subhankar Dutta, representing the VHP, explained that the petition was filed subsequent to the organisation’s correspondence with state authorities regarding the issue.
However, West Bengal’s forest minister and TMC MLA Birbaha Hansda rebuffed these assertions, insisting that the names had been assigned by Tripura Zoo and accusing the VHP of engaging in “dirty politics.”
Officials confirmed that the lions, named Akbar and Sita, are currently housed separately in Siliguri and are anticipated to be exhibited together in two months.
The animals were exchanged between Tripura’s Sepahijala Zoo and the North Bengal Wildlife Park, with the latter receiving a lion and lioness named Ram and Sita.
However, officials from Sepahijala Zoo clarified that animals are identified by codes rather than names and that records indicate the lions were referred to as Ram and Sita.
This exchange program marks the first of its kind in the last decade for Sepahijala Zoo and Wildlife Sanctuary, the oldest and largest zoo and sanctuary in Tripura.
The right-wing organisation is perturbed by the association of the name “Akbar” with a Mughal emperor and Mata “Sita” as a character in Valmiki’s ‘Ramayan,’ a revered Hindu deity.
According to reports, the VHP contends that the state’s forest department assigned the names to the lions and that pairing ‘Sita’ with ‘Akbar’ is considered disrespectful to Hindus, demanding a change in the lioness’s name.
The issue has gained traction on social media, with trolls and memes ridiculing the petition that reached the Calcutta High Court regarding the Muslim-Hindu names given to lions brought to Bengal. Some comments mockingly suggest that Sita is restless in search of a partner or imply that she is pregnant with Akbar.
Over the years, making sexual jokes about Mata Sita, revered by millions of Hindus worldwide, has become normalised, with individuals like Munawar Faruqui gaining notoriety after making jokes about her.
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