Visuals about the true and pure love of two friends recorded at Kanpur Zoo went viral on social media, people who saw those videos started requesting the government to free the bird from the Zoo and give it back to Arif.
Arif Khan Gurjar, a person from Amethi- Faizabad district had taken great care of the injured crane and later that incident the stork began to live with his caretaker Arif, the bird became one of family members in Amethi’s village and stayed there for months.
The former CM Akhilesh Yadav tweeted the video of the crane and his lovable friend Arif saying that “People who realize that dislikes will fill their hearts, do not understand the tenderness of natural love… and sometimes those who go against nature are successful.”
Once,Akhilesh Yadav met Arif-Saras in Amethi and after that meeting, the department of forest became operational and legal actions began.The bird was separated from Mohd Arif Khan and shifted to Kanpur Zoo by the officials of the forest department who had declared that the endangered bird needs to live in a natural environment.
The officials said that the crane should be in the natural surroundings and took the bird from Arif Khan to the Samaspur Bird Sanctuary in Rae Bareilly. After some days the bird was sent to Kanpur zoo from Rae Bareli, at Kanpur zoo the bird was put in quarantine for almost half a month.Some of the reports said that the bird did not eat food properly after the separation.
After the quarantine period, a meeting was arranged for few minutes and Arif Khan Gurjar made his time to meet Saras at Kanpur zoo at the beginning of this week, as soon as the caretaker reached the paddock, the bird became extremely happy and started chirping from the yard restlessly. But Arif was restricted to go near the stork,he said that Saras was craving to reach him but could not go inside due to some formalities. Samajwadi Party(SP) MLA Amitabh Bajpai, who was with Arif in the Kanpur zoo, said that seeing the pure love of two friends filled his eyes with tears.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Varun Gandhi wanted to reunite the stork with the man who rescued and took care of the injured bird for over a year. He said that their love is pure and this beautiful bird would rather fly freely than live in a cage. He also said that the stork should get back its friends,sky and freedom.
