- NEW DELHI (AFP) - A man masquerading as a giant monkey
is suspected of behind a string of crazed attacks which have triggered
an exodus from an industrial suburb of New Delhi, Indian police Saturday.
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- The police revealed the bizarre case after another resident
of an enclave of the township of Ghaziabad was seriously "mauled"
Saturday by what local residents said was a "man-monkey" on the
prowl.
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- More than a dozen people have been hospitalised with
fractures and severe injuries as a result of the attacks since April 28,
many of them from falls while running away.
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- Local police said that despite an operation to arrest
the disguised mischief-maker, the suspect was still ambushing residents
at will, but neither robbed or sexually assaulted his victims.
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- The Press Trust of India (PTI) described Ghaziabad, a
sprawling township of around 150,000 people some 35 kilometres (22 miles)
north of Delhi, as in an absolute panic.
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- "There is certainly absolute panic in the city.
I and senior police officers are taking the rounds of the city and we have
deployed a lot of personnel," said Ghaziabad police chief Prashant
Kumar.
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- "Somebody is playing a mischief by wearing a mask.
There is absolutely no scientific basis to the stories," he said,
referring to rumours the attacker was a modern-day Frankenstein.
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- One witness, Ganesh Jha, of the Maharana Vihar Residents'
Association, claimed he came face to face with the "huge man-monkey"
and saw him jump 20 feet (six metres) in the air.
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- "We were taking an evening walk when we walked into
this huge man-monkey. The monster sprang up 20 feet from a crouching position
and grabbed the branches of a tree and vanished before me and my children
could even scream," Jha told AFP.
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- PTI and the Hindi-language Hindustan daily said Ghaziabad
was deserted, with its once-lively shopping malls closing before sundown
in fear.
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- Thousands have sent their children away from Ghaziabad
and many office-goers were staying indoors, the Hindustan said.
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- Many local residents are saying the attacks are by a
genetic scientist who experimented on himself with an unspecified and untested
serum. Police have discounted the rumour as rubbish.
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- Speculation of a killer "stoneman" rocked Calcutta
eight years ago following the murder of a dozen homeless people in the
eastern city.
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- The mystery ended with the arrest of a serial killer
who used large rocks to batter his sleeping victims.
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- ----
- From Hindustan Times
- 5-12-1
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- Ghaziabad is in the grip of panic. Not a day passes in
this city without sightings of the weird monkey-man. It appears that someone
donning a rhesus monkey mask has been stalking various localities of the
city, spreading terror among its residents. The monkey-man has even injured
a few.
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- The latest victim of this sinister simian is 30-year-old
Shamir Begum, a housewife living in the Islamnagar area. The woman swooned
when she came across the monkey-man walking on her terrace.
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- "Shamir Begum screamed and collapsed. By the time
we arrived at her side the monkey-man had fled," said a neighbour.
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- Although the Ghaziabad Police claim that there is nothing
like a monkey-man, complaints of sightings, scuffles and looting by the
monkey-man are pouring into police stations here.
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- Two days back the monkey-man tried to claw Naresh Kumar
Sharma of Ghukna Colony and tried to break the leg of his mother.
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- Twin terror struck Kamla Nehru Nagar when two monkey-men
jumped on a resident, Om Veer, and tried to scratch his face.
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- "They ran away when they saw the headlights of an
approaching car," the complainant told the police while reporting
the matter at the Kavi Nagar police station.
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- Though yesterday the Ghaziabad Police arrested a person
named Dharmendar suspected to be the monkey-man, residents here are still
under the grip of fear.
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- Dharmender said he was only an ordinary thief who decided
to take advantage of the fear-psychosis in the city. "He donned the
mask so that everyone would think he is yet another monkey-man at work
and so would be scared of touching him," said a police official.
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- Meanwhile, a number of localities including Jatwara,
Ghukna, Shibbanpura, Nasirpur, Chanderpuri, Maliwara and Vijay Nagar residents
have mobilised small self-styled bands of local youths to hunt down the
monkey-man and remove fears from the minds of the people.
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- In other areas, people are taking recourse to superstition
to allay fear. In fact, the matter got out of hand at Kailash Nagar where
residents caught hold of a girl named Manju and started beating her.
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- The residents said that the "devilish soul of a
monkey" had entered into her body.
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