Calcutta High Court on February 22 asked the West Bengal government to consider rebranding a lioness named after the Hindu goddess Sita. The lioness is currently resident in a State zoo.
The single judge Bench of the court’s Jalpaiguri circuit also directed the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which had complained that the animal’s name offended Hindu sentiments, to reclassify its plea into a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) so that it can be placed before the regular bench of the High Court.
The lioness, along with a lion named Akbar, was brought to West Bengal’s Siliguri Safari Park from Tripura’s Sepahijala Zoological Park on February 13, as part of an animal exchange initiative. The animals had already been named before they were transferred to Siliguri, according to the West Bengal Forest Department.
‘Why create more controversies?’
“Our State is suffering from various controversies… right from appointment of teachers to other controversies… Why do you want to create more controversies by naming a lioness after Sita,” observed Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya who orally asked the Additional Advocate General (AAG) Debjyoti Choudhary, representing the State, to take a prudent step to avoid this controversy.
The AAG responded that the State was considering renaming the animal.
During the hearing, which was livestreamed on YouTube, the VHP said that the name of the lioness has hurt the religious sentiments of the Hindu community and could be termed blasphemy. Its plea also objected to the lewd manner in which the pair of lions, named Akbar and Sita, were represented in the Bengali media.