Ghaziabad: The condition of a 15-year-old boy who fell off a fourth-floor terrace trying to evade a chasing monkey in Ghaziabad continued to be serious. The boy has suffered fractures in the hands and legs.
“His family has taken him to a private hospital in Noida. Diagnostic tests such as CT scan will be done there,” said Anil Yadav, the
Shipra Sun City police outpost in-charge. The family is yet to approach the police.
Ashish Nayak, a Class IX student and resident of Sun City Phase II in Indirapuram, was playing with his friends on the terrace of a four-storied building in Phase 1 when a monkey started chasing the boys. Ashish, while trying to escape, fell through the shaft of the building to the ground floor. A CISF constable, who was visiting his senior in the building, heard the cries of the boy and took him to a nearby hospital.
Residents complained that monkey menace had assumed alarming proportions in the area, which has close to 5,000 flats in Phases 1 and 2 of Shipra Sun City. The RWA members said they were spending Rs 5 lakh a year on hiring people to chase away monkeys.
KK Tripathi, the vice-president of Shipra Sun City Phase I Apartment Owners’ Association, said: “Simian attack in the area is on the rise. Every day, we receive at least 5-6 complaints from residents about monkeys entering their homes or attacking them. We have hired two persons to chase away monkeys and are paying them Rs 9,000 each. As there is a ban on hiring langurs, these men produce a peculiar sound which scares the monkeys away. My wife, too, has been a victim of monkey attack.”
Tripathi said his wife Madhuri (66) had been attacked by a group of monkeys on October 27 last year and suffered fractures on her right hand, leg and hip joint. “She was on bed rest of two months and still needs crutches to walk,” he added.
Rakesh Gangwar, general secretary of Shipra Sun City Phase II AOA, said: “The monkeys keep moving from one place to another. Most people have put up grilles in the balconies to avoid monkeys from entering. People avoid sending their kids to the terrace. We have paying Rs 22,000 in total to two persons to keep monkeys away.”
The forest department had on March 12 given a 15-day permission to the apartment owners’ association of Phase I to catch monkeys and release them in distant areas. However, the association has not been able to catch a single monkey despite hiring teams from Mathura and Delhi, said RN Rai, the president of AOA (Phase I).
Ghaziabad mayor Asha Sharma said: “The complaints of the residents are genuine. We are working on this. Many people revere monkeys and feed them. This attracts the animals all the more.”
