VHP moves court after lioness 'Sita' is housed with lion 'Akbar' at Bengal safari
Siliguri (WB), Feb 17: The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has filed a petition before the Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench of Calcutta High Court claiming that a lioness transferred to Bengal Safari Park here from Tripura was named "Sita" and prayed that the name be changed, VHP's lawyer said on Saturday.
The park authorities, however, denied that any such name was given by it to the lioness.
Two lions were brought from Tripura's Sepahijala Zoological Park on February 12. The lion was named "Akbar", the VHP claimed.
The VHP's north Bengal unit filed the petition on February 16 and the matter is likely to be heard on February 20 before a single bench of the court, petitioner's advocate on record Subhankar Dutta told PTI.
He said the petitioner has prayed that the name of the lioness be changed as such naming of an animal may hurt religious sentiments.
It was also urged that no animal in any zoological park be named after gods and goddesses of any religion in future, Dutta said.
The parishad's north Bengal unit said it learnt from media reports that a lion and lioness with markings as IL26 and IL27, respectively, arrived at the Bengali Safari Park as part of an animal exchange programme and that the lioness was named "Sita".
The park authorities asserted it had not named the two animals and the official naming was awaited.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
