Pakistani couple faces backlash for using sedated lion cub in wedding shoot
Agencies | Lahore
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Animal rights organisations have raised concerns after videos of a Pakistani couple using a sedated lion cub as a prop during their wedding emerged online. The images were posted on the Instagram story of Studio Afzl - a Lahore-based photography studio, reports Geo TV.
In the footage, which has sparked a huge backlash on social media, the couple can be seen holding hands while the lion cub lies between them. The videos were accompanied by the hashtag #SherdiRani to emphasise the presence of the cub.
Save the Wild, an animal welfare organisation in Pakistan, shared the footage on Twitter, highlighting the incident as a case of animal cruelty and requesting that the lion cub be rescued from the studio.
On Twitter, footage of the lion cub being used as a wedding prop drew huge backlash.
"Well, this is shameful. No point sedating a young animal," wrote one person in the comments section.
"The studio's management told us that the lion cub was brought [to the studio] by a friend of theirs that owned it, and according to them it was a plain coincidence that the couple was also present, so they decided to take a few pictures with the lion cub," Zulfishan Anushay, the founder of JFK, told The Independent.
In an Instagram post, the organisation explained that possessing a wild animal in Pakistan is not illegal if one has a license. "How can one take legal actions when these people have licenses to own these cubs? Once you get a license in Pakistan you can treat these poor cubs as you want," they wrote.
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