Over 1,000 guests, including Chittagong Deputy Commissioner Mesbah Uddin, Additional Deputy Commissioners – Dr Anupam Saha and Habibur Rahman, Additional District Magistrate Mominur Rashid and Member Secretary of Chittagong Zoo Executive Committee Ruhul Amin, were present on the occasion.
Apart from government high-officials, students from different educational institutes and visitors from different parts of the city took part in the unusual occasion, a first in Bangladesh.
Chittagong Deputy Commissioner Mesbah Uddin, who is also the President of Chittagong Zoo Executive Committee inaugurated the wedding party by cutting a 47kg cake made out of beef.
On the occasion of the wedding ceremony, the entire zoo wore a festive look with colourful festoons and banners. Hundreds of colorful balloons were flown in the air celebrating the union.
Mentionable that the two lionesses ‘Borsha’ and ‘Nova’ at Chittagong Zoo have long been deprived of their mates in the cages. On the other hand, the two lions at Rangpur Zoo were also passing their days in extreme loneliness in absence of mates.
Therefore, to remove the loneliness of the captive mammals, an exchange of a lion and a lioness took place between the two zoos.
The 11-year-old lion ‘Badsha’ which arrived at Chittagong Zoo on September 4 from Ranpur Zoo was renamed as ‘Nabha’ yesterday.
Addressing the event as the chief guest, Chittagong DC Mesbah Uddin expressed his optimism that lioness ‘Nova’ finally got rid of her agonising loneliness and the population of the big cat species would increase in the zoo.
“We have undertaken a massive project for bringing a radical change to the zoo. As part of breathing a new life into the zoo, we are going to increase the number of animals,” said the DC.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Dr Md Mongur Morshed Chowdhury, deputy curator of Chittagong Zoo, said the lion and the lioness would be released in the same cage tomorrow.
“The lion ‘Nabha’ and the lioness ‘Nova’ have already developed intimacy between them as we have kept them in side-by-side cages. We are optimistic that the couple will soon give birth to cubs,” hoped Dr Morshed.
The unusual occasion drew a huge number of visitors to the zoo.
The zoo sources said about 800 tickets were sold out in just two hours from 10am.
The eager visitors were all trying to have a glimpse at the big cat couple as they were roaring and strutting in their cages.
Mariyam Begum, a college student, told this correspondent that she had come to the zoo as she never heard of such an unusual occasion before.
Set up on February 28, 1989, the zoo is now located in a six-acre of hilly terrain in the city’s Foy’s Lake area.
Run by Chittagong district administration, the zoo now houses 360 animals of 67 species. Of them, 34 species are of birds while the rest species are of reptiles and other mammals.