KOLKATA: The Kolkata High Court on Thursday asked the state government to change the name of lion ‘Akbar’ and lioness ‘Sita’, kept in the same enclosure at Bengal Safari Park in Siliguri, after a petition by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) opposing the government’s decision to keep the two animals together and demanding a change in the name of lioness saying it was disrespectful to Hindus.
The court asked the state government’s lawyer whether he would name his own pet after a Hindu God or a Muslim Prophet.
“Will you yourself name your own pet after some Hindu God or Muslim Prophet? I think, if any of us would have been the authority, none of us would have named then as Akbar and Sita. Can anyone of us think of naming an animal after Rabindranath Tagore?” said Justice Saugata Bhattacharya of Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench.
Justice Bhattacharya also asked to change the name of lion Akbar on his own though it was not demanded in VHP’s petition. “Sita is worshipped by a larger section of this country. I also oppose naming the lion after Akbar. He was an efficient, successful and secular Mughal Emperor,” he observed.
While passing observation, Justice Bhattacharya said he wondered whether an animal should be named after a god, or a mythological character or freedom fighters. “We are not talking about the names of the pet animals of an officer of the zoo department. But you are a welfare and secular state and why should you draw a controversy by naming a lion after Sita and Akbar,” he said.
The state government told the court that naming of the two lions was done by the Tripura zoo authorities in 2016 and 2018 before their recent transfer to Bengal. “The issue over their names only cropped up once the lions arrived the Bengal Safari Park,” said additional advocate general Debjyoti Choudhary.
Choudhary assured the court that the lions would be given new names but urged to dismiss the VHP’s petition. The court ordered the VHP’s plea be classified as a public interest litigation (PIL) and list it before the bench which hears PILs.
Several animals were exchanged under the Centre’s animal exchange programme including the two lions. The Bengal Safari Park sent a Royan Bengal Tiger, two Shila cubs to the north-eastern state Tripura’s Sepahijala Zoological Park in exchange of the lions under the aegis of this programme.