Monkey attacks on the rise in Nurpur, panic grips residents

Rajiv Mahajan

NURPUR, APRIL 29

Rise in the number of monkey attacks in the town has become a cause of concern for the residents.

Recently, retired bank official Balbir Singh lost his life after a monkey attacked him. In the same locality, an aged Sharat Mahajan is still on the bed after monkeys attacked him and his leg got fractured. Madan Lal, a retired Public Works Department employee, was attacked by a monkey last evening in Dunga Bazaar here. These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg.

The monkey menace in the urban as well as the rural areas has reached an alarming proportion. Earlier, children and women were soft targets for monkeys but now these are aggressive towards men and youngsters too. Panic has gripped the residents of the area. Herds of monkeys can be seen roaming in residential localities.

The menace has also become a cause of concern for the farming community in the lower areas of the Kangra district, despite tall claims made by the state government to check the problem. Monkeys continue to destroy crops, causing heavy losses to farmers. Hundreds of acres of land have gone barren in the lower areas of the state as farmers have left their fields uncultivated because of the menace for the past over six years.

The government is well aware of the grim situation but no scientific method has been adopted to nail it so far.

In 2008, the then state government had envisaged a plan to sterilise monkeys but little has been done. The Forest Department, which was entrusted with the task of setting up sterilisation centres, seems dormant about the problem.

Earlier, in 2010, the state government had allowed the culling of monkeys but because of the stay orders of the High Court, farmers were restrained and the problem remained unsolved. The state government has failed to plead its case forcefully before the High Court and lost the game.

The state government has also failed to take up the issue of lifting the export ban on simians.

Rajiv Pathania and Ritesh Mahajan, general secretaries of the Crescent Club and Nurpur Sudhar Sabha, the local non government organisations, respectively, have expressed concern over the rising monkey attacks and appealed to the state government to take effective steps to curb the menace.