20 simians get trapped even as foresters deny monkey theory in baby’s death

Soon after some monkeys reportedly took away twin babies which were sleeping in a house and dropped one of the infants to death in a pond while the other one was rescued from the roof of the same house, Collector M Govinda Roa ordered to catch all the simians from residential areas. 

A team of 15 forest officials had swung into action, placed cages at different places and caught around 20 monkeys. Later, all of them were released into the Pachamalai forests. 

Commenting about the Saturday tragedy in Thanjavur, forest officials raised several doubts. According to District Forest Officer Ilayaraja, initial investigations into the tragedy was over and monkeys from this region could lift only objects weighing between 200 and 500 grams. “If you observe monkeys carrying their babies, the mother will not hold the young one, instead the little ones only used to cling on to the back of its mother. It is also not possible for a monkey to lift babies weighing between 2 and 2.5 kg through the wall,” he explained. 

Ilayaraja also said that there was no injury on both the babies, the deceased as well as the rescued one. “Anyway, we will study the post-mortem report and then decide on the next course of investigation,” he said.