At PU, marauding monkeys have a field day

 Ishrat S Banwait

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 21

Monkeys have become a source of constant trouble for hostel inmates at Panjab University. Most hostels have small balconies where students dry their clothes and keep many other items like shoes. Students inform that monkeys regularly take away their clothes and other items from these balconies.

The problem starts right in the morning when they are seen lurking around hostels. They continue to roam freely in the hostels throughout the day, looking for whatever they can find to eat or play with. Students inform that undergarments are among the favourite items of monkeys.

In the past, the PU authorities had used two langoors to keep monkeys away but the practice was discontinued after the intervention of  animal rights bodies. The authorities then tried a device to scare away monkeys but after a while monkeys got used to it and it became ineffective. The university had to discontinue it and has now hired six people to scare away monkeys.

These men work from 8 am to 5 pm and produce the sound of langoors to scare away monkeys. The authorities claim that the team passes through the campus each day but students say that they have never been seen or heard of. A hostel inmate said, “We keep the back door of our rooms locked due to the monkey menace. Monkeys take away our stuff but we so not have any option.”

Vishal Sharma, warden of Boys’ Hostel No. 6, “We can’t  do much. We ask students not to feed them.” “Students eat in gardens of the hostels and leave plates with food outside, which invites stray animals,” adds the warden. Like monkeys, stray dogs also have a free run in the hostels and are commonly seen in the corridors.

Students have already been attacked a number of times by the monkeys in the past. In one such case, a girl student had jumped from the first floor of her hostel room in a bid to save herself from monkeys.   

Measures to tackle menace fail 

In the past, the PU authorities had used two langoors to keep monkeys away but the practice was discontinued after the intervention of animal rights bodies. The authorities then tried a device to scare away monkeys but after a while monkeys got used to it and it became ineffective. The university had to discontinue it and has now hired six people to scare away monkeys.