The party was held at the Anurag Farmhouse on the Sama Road here to celebrate a birthday in the Zaveri family of NRIs and city glitterati. To suit the occasion, Nilesh, uncle of the birthday boy, asked his friend Ranjan Babu, owner of Apollo Circus currently in Surat to send a lion cub along. Nilesh told The Indian Express he wanted ``to educate little Dev about wildlife''.

Incidentally, the guests included Special Inspector-General of Police D D Tuteja and District Superintendent of Police Shamsher Singh, both of whom deny having seen the cub at all.

The party was in full flowuntil a team of GSPCA and forest officials, tipped off by a party guest who said he had had enough of the cruelty, swooped down and seized the three-month-old animal. A statement was taken by the Fatehgunj police station -- after much difficulty, said the GSPCA's Snehal Bhatt -- and a case registered by the Wildlife Wing's Assistant Conservator of Forest Dinesh Mistry.

In fact, says Prashant Ray, another GSPCA activist who was part of the raiding crew, ``It was painful to see a cub being made to `perform' for the rich. It was being controlled by an iron chain. We pleaded with the Zaveri family, the police and the foresters, but no one seemed to understand a thing about the law.''

Or, apparently, the fallout. For till Monday night, the wheels of law seemed to have got bogged down in `routine work', the officials probably unable to comprehend the importance of the catch they had. Till late on Monday night, the Fatehgunj police were yet to register a case and yet to question the Zaveris or circusrepresentatives V C Shanku and Vilas Malavi who were accompanying the cub as the station inspector said he ``had more important work making arrangements for Holi''. He said he would speak about the case only after sending a team to Surat.

Commissioner J Mahapatra said the police had taken cognisance by registering the complaint in the station diary; interrogation of the parties involved would follow, and an FIR would be registered late on Monday night.The evidence is pretty compelling: Forest officials said that exhibition of the cub apart, the circus had no ownership licence for the animal and consequently no licence to transport it.

Compelling enough for Union minister and animal welfare activist Maneka Gandhi to demand the arrest of the Zaveris and the circus officials. ``The man who had supplied the cub as well as the one had hosted the party involving its exhibition must immediately booked. There are provisions. There is no question of delay anywhere in the proceedings. If the host says he was notaware of the laws, it is his problem. If tomorrow an NRI brings narcotics, he is liable for punishment under Indian law,'' she told The Indian Express on the phone.

Circus manager Shanku admits defeat; his side has no case, he says. ``I apologise for taking out the animal from Surat without any ownership certificate or a transit pass.'' However, he says the cub was moved out of Surat because it was unwell; once out, a request came from the circus owner's friend and the cub was exhibited at the farmhouse. He couldn't say whether the animal had been shown to any vet in Vadodara or in Surat.The cub, meanwhile, is in a cage at the forest department nursery in Vadodara, and is likely to be sent soon to a national park until the case is decided in court.