Pregnant monkey shot in Balangir

A five-year-old pregnant monkey was shot at last evening, resulting in the death of both mother and its foetus.

According to reports, on Monday evening, the residents of Kansari pada of Balangir town found the injured Langur monkey bleeding due to gunshots.

“Immediately, we informed local police and forest officials and the injured monkey was handed over to the forest officals,” said a volunteer of Bajrang Dal who spotted the monkey. Later, the injured was shifted to a local veterinary hospital, but there it died.

The postmortem was conducted on Tuesday. According to sources, the monkey and the pregnant baby monkey which was 8 months’ old due to excessive bleeding died.

The bullet (locally called charra) hit the intestine of the monkey.

Who killed and why remains the moot question here.

“We have registered a case,” says Balangir Forest Range Officer BK Khuntia. However, local police have not registered a case.

According to sources, in Balangir, wild animal death incidents are suppressed and hardly the culprits are not brought to book with alacrity.

A few months ago in Loisingha forest range, the death of an elephant inside the forest was suppressed and officials took the plea that the pachyderm died due to heart attack.

“This is 13th such incident of attack on monkey and forest officials are not taking adequate steps to nab the culprits. We demand action against guilty,” said a local.