The lions look bemused or even bored in photos but not unhappy. Now in a captive-breeding program in India’s eastern state of West Bengal, they are as married as animals can be. On Saturday, the authorities suspended a high-ranking forestry official who had overseen the animals for naming the lioness Sita, after a revered Hindu goddess, and her mate Akbar, after a medieval Muslim emperor. Amid an atmosphere of heightened religious and political tensions between Hindus and Muslims in the country, the lions’ names drew an outcry. Lakshman Bansal, an official of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a far-right group linked to India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, said that when he read the lions’ names in a Bengali newspaper it “felt provocative.”“It is blasphemy,” Mr. Bansal said by telephone.

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Persons: Sita, Akbar, Lakshman Bansal, “, ” Mr, Bansal, ” Organizations: Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bharatiya Janata Party Locations: West Bengal