Monkeys chase three-year-old to his death
Wed, November 12 2008
The Mayawati government decided on a more concerted action after a three-year-old boy fell off his terrace while trying to save himself from being mauled by a pack of monkeys. State Forest Minister Fateh Bahadur Singh promptly had his officials take action.
After chasing monkeys for nearly 48 hours, they had trapped two.
“We hope to get more over the next few days,” Lucknow’s divisional forest conservator C.P. Goel told IANS.
Asked why his team of a dozen professional monkey catchers were unable to achieve more success, Goel said: “Please don’t go by just numbers as monkey catching involves a strategy whereby we target the leader of each pack. Once you have got the leader the rest of the pack disperses or runs for safety.”
“So far the task of monkey catching was entrusted to the municipal corporation, but now that the menace had grown manifold, the administration has decided to hand over the responsibility to the forest and wildlife department.”
Meanwhile, Islamuddin, father of three-year-old Mohammad Arbaz who died, has appealed to the district authorities “to save lives of citizens from unbridled infiltration by monkeys into several residential localities.”
His six-year-old daughter is still in hospital, after she managed to wriggle out of the clutches of the monkeys on the same day her brother lost his life.
“My children were playing on the terrace of our house in the old city when they were surrounded by a pack of monkeys. While my daughter managed to run down the steps even as she was bitten and bruised by the monkeys, a terrorized three-year-old Arbaz got cornered by the attack and fell off the terrace and succumbed to his injuries.”
By Sharat Pradhan
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