A horrifying incident took place in Dunka village in Uttar Pradesh, India, when a four-month-old baby was allegedly hurled off the roof by a monkey from a three-story house, killing the infant after the horrible fall.
The family of three was standing on the terrace last Friday, July 15, when monkeys surrounded them. The incident adds to the country's many reported cases of monkey attacks.
Monkey Attacks on Children in India
Nirdesh Upadhyay was standing on the terrace with his wife and baby boy in their three-story house when a troop of primates clambered onto the roof and surrounded them, MailOnline reported. They tried to bat the monkeys away but failed, so they ran toward the stairs to escape the primates.
But Nirdesh stumbled and dropped his son. Within just a split second, one monkey abruptly grabbed the baby by the hand and hurled their son off the roof before either parent could react. The couple immediately go to their son, who died on the spot.
Authorities from the Shahi police station are now investigating the incident. Bareilly City's conservation chief Lalit Verma told a local news outlet that his team was dispatched to investigate the involvement of the monkeys in the death of the couple's son.
Uttar Pradesh is home to many rhesus monkeys that roam free throughout the towns and cities. They generally live harmoniously with humans, but there are still a number of documented cases of monkey attacks, especially among children.
Another example of a monkey attack in the area happened in February when a five-year-old girl was killed by a troop of monkeys in Bichpuri in the Bareilly district of Uttar Pradesh, the Times of India reported. The girl played with her friends near the Nakatya river when monkeys began biting.
Her father told the newspaper that the monkeys aggressively attacked his daughter and bit her almost everywhere, causing her to lose so much blood. The girl died shortly after being rushed to the community health center due to major blood loss.
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Rhesus Monkeys Behavior
As babies, monkeys may seem harmless to humans. However, they usually become aggressive when they reach sexual maturity, according to National Geographic. For monkeys kept as pets, they sometimes attack their human family members to establish dominance.
Their owners would then look for a place to handle these monkeys, but most zoos do not accept former pet monkeys due to their behavior. So, they end up in sanctuaries where they live out their remaining days. Although some could also end up being sold and resold over and over again, others are sent to laboratories or used in a breeding program.
In the case of rhesus monkeys, the species that attacked the family in India, these monkeys are believed to be aggressive animals. Adults, particularly males, can inflict serious wounds using their razor-sharp dagger-like canines and can be extremely aggressive to strange conspecifics.
But the Animal Welfare Institute says that little verifiable evidence regarding the monkeys' aggressive behavior does not prove that rhesus monkeys are naturally aggressive. Experts who studied them are convinced that captive animals become aggressive due to management-related circumstances.
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