Bhandup cops rapped for ‘encouraging’ monkey men rumours

What earned the Bhandup police a mouthful from the police headquarters was that they were encouraging such rumours through their actions. Policemen were visiting shoe shops in the area in an attempt to identify whether ‘shoes with special springs’ were being manufactured there,sources revealed. What also went against them was their decision to call in a snorkel ladder from the fire department to look for robbers,who they believed were hiding in tree-tops.

“For a few weeks,rumours were floated by some people in Bhandup (West) that have been causing a lot of inconvenience to local residents. They said ‘monkey men’,who were capable of jumping great lengths and climbing tall trees,were prowling around the area to commit violent robberies. With the civic polls coming up,various political parties had also seized upon the opportunity to create patrolling squads of their own,” said a senior Mumbai Police officer,who did not wish to be named.

“The Assistant Commissioner of Police of the area ordered men to go to shoe shops and conduct enquiries about shoes that had special springs built into the soles to make people jump to great heights. The last straw was when they called in a snorkel ladder to climb tall trees and shine flashlights into the leaves to look for the monkey men,who were supposedly terrorising the residents,” said the officer. At a public meeting held on Thursday,the Bhandup police and the Additional Commissioner of Police (East) Quaiser Khalid were taken to task for encouraging such “baseless rumours’’ and promising an additional 200 men to patrol the area.

“The Bhandup police and some senior officers handling the matter received an earful for believing such rumours and doing the opposite of what they should have done. All special patrolling has been stopped in the area and any assembly of more than five persons has been prohibited in the area under the Bombay Police Act,” said the officer.