For 2 hours, a bonnet macaque led the cops and wildlife rescue team in a merry dance
Early on Sunday, just after midnight, an injured monkey crept into the Kengeri police station. It was raining outside, and he cowered at one corner, disturbing no one. The cops on duty let him be.
But that was when he came into his own.
The monkey – a bonnet macaque, which is protected under the Indian Wildlife Act – soon had the cops on tenterhooks.
Activists from People for Animals, Somu H N and Ramesh V, received an SOS call from the Kengeri police station at 7 am.
“Things went crazy,” Kiran S Rudra, manager, PFA, told Bangalore Mirror. ”We initially thought it would be a minor rescue. They had told us that the monkey seemed to be wounded.” Initially, the rescuers found the macaque sitting outside the police station on a bike. When they tried to take control of him, he simply jumped and went inside the police station.
For two hours, the injured primate, which has a disabled right leg that also has a cut on it, and a damaged left arm, managed with its just two functional limbs to jump, snarl, run and try to bite anyone who tried to touch it. The activists and doctors felt that the right leg was probably from deformed from birth, but the damage to the left arm, healed now, was caused by electrocution.
The monkey which seemed about six years old, showed a particular fondness for people wearing khaki. In the two hours before it was rescued, he jumped onto the shoulders of officers wearing khaki and would sit there for a few minutes. The officers had no choice but to stay still, fearing the monkey’s teeth!
Anyone in mufti was a target of the monkey’s anger, making the plainclothes cops in the station freeze with fear. Further, the monkey also showed a strong fondness for photographs. The only pictures on the walls of the station were those of deities, and the macaque made a beeline for them.
“He was unstoppable as he started running from top to ground floor inside the two-floor building. He even ran out and scared people in nearby houses. And strangely, came back to the police station again. He smashed two tubelights inside. Finally, we drove him into a room and locked the doors. Using a blanket, our volunteers rescued him successfully after two hours. By that time, there were 20 people around, who had to wait helplessly to start their work,” Rudra said. The macaque has been taken to the PFA rescue centre and is being treated. It will be released into the forest once it is well, he added.
