Monkey menace claims one life in India

With an estimated 3,000 monkeys at large in certain residential areas of the Uttar Pradesh capital, local authorities are chasing the animals on a war footing, particularly after a child lost his life to a marauding simian pack.

The Mayawati government realised the need for more concerted action only after a three-year-old boy fell off his terrace while desperately attempting to save himself from being mauled by a pack of monkeys last Saturday. State forest minister Fateh Bahadur Singh then promptly got his officials into action.

After chasing monkeys for nearly 48 hours, they had their first success on Tuesday afternoon when they trapped two monkeys.

"We have managed to trap two monkeys today and hope to get more over the next few days," Lucknow's divisional forest conservator CP Goel said.

Asked why his team of a dozen professional monkey catchers were unable to achieve more success, Goel pleaded: "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."

According to him, "the trapped animals will be let loose in some nearby forest from where they would not be able to return to urban habitation."