Forest Officer suspended for naming Lion Pair Akbar and Sita in India

The Indian state Tripura's government suspended the state's principal chief conservator of forests, Prabin Lal Agrawal, on Saturday following a controversy over the naming of a zoo lion and lioness as Akbar and Sita, respectively.
As reported by Times of India, Agrawal, a 1994-batch IFS officer who was serving as Tripura's chief wildlife warden at the time, documented the names Akbar and Sita for the lion couple in the dispatch register before sending them to Siliguri.
The suspension came after a complaint was filed by Vishva Hindu Parishad, a radical right-wing Hindu nationalist group to the Calcutta High Court, alleging that the names were offensive to religious sentiments. A lion named 'Akbar' and a lioness named 'Sita' were transferred from Tripura’s Sepahijala Zoological Park to the Bengal Safari Park in Siliguri on February 12.
The VHP filed a petition before the circuit bench requesting a name change, citing that the names had offended the religious sentiments of some citizens.
Sita is a Hindu goddess from the Sanskrit tale Ramayana while Akbar is one of the successful Mughal emperor who ruled Indian subcontinent.'

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