Monkeys Stone 72-Yr-Old Man To Death; Family Files Complaint, Demands FIR

A bunch of monkeys stoned a 72-year-old man to death in Uttar Pradesh when he went to collect wood for a ritual. According to police officials, Dharampal Singh was collecting pieces of dry wood when the monkeys rained bricks, which they got from a nearby dilapidated building, at him from the treetop. 

Hit on the head and chest, the man succumbed to his injuries in a hospital. The man's family has lodged a formal complaint and named the monkeys as accused in the case. Police, however, are in a fix  over the issue and registered the issue as an "accident". Not convinced, the family has decided to raise the matter to higher officials.

According to the deceased's brother, the “monkeys threw more than 20 bricks at Dharampal on Thursday. He was hit on the head, chest and legs. Thrown from quite a height, the bricks were enough to kill him. These rogue monkeys are the real culprits and must pay for it. We have given a written complaint against monkeys but police don’t seem to be convinced enough to convert it into an FIR."

Villagers living in the area have said that the monkeys have made their lives a living hell and caused inconvenience to the entire population.  “The attack on Dharampal could be the worst case, but monkeys have made life difficult for villagers here and there doesn’t seem to be any solution in sight,” Bheema Kashyap, a local resident, said.

Chitwan Singh, station officer of Doghat police station, said, “How can we register the case against monkeys? This will make us a laughingstock. I don’t think it is a logical demand. We were definitely informed of the bizarre accident and we registered it in our case diary after which a post-mortem was also conducted.”

*Originally published in The Times of India*