Monkey menace forces villagers to abandon fields

The situation has come to such a pass that people have started migrating to safer places in the neighbourhood.

All these problems have nothing to do with drought or presence of dacoits or the movement of militants in the area. But the culprits are the simians, whom villagers instead of killing still used to pay obeisance.

This has instead led to the overgrowth of their population and thus creating further menace in the area. These monkeys have played havoc with the fields here, not allowing any type of vegetation to grow. Whatever have been sown during the past ten years here have been plucked and thrown away by them.

Even after so much hardships the villagers are not allowing the government agencies to kill these animals. “How can we kill our ancestors. May be what ever they are doing is for our benefit,” said Ram Gopal, a village elder.

But some of the youth, who want to get rid of these prowling monkeys also succumb before the rituals preached by their elders. “I don’t understand what type of good luck they are talking about. These monkeys have infact, brought us on the verge of extinction. If we do not do anything right now, time is not far, when we will have to search for water,” said a village youth, agitated over the blind faith of the village elders.

Most of the villagers however, have shifted to other trade. They have stopped ploughing fields, which once used to cater vegetables to almost whole of the Udhampur district.

Fed up with the menace of monkeys some of the villagers recently approached a nearby Army unit. But the villagers made it clear, that the Army should device some other method than killing these monkeys. So army officials decided to send their trained dogs for the mission, who chased these monkeys miles away.

But happiness of villagers was just for few hours. As in the morning monkeys returned again and this time they attacked the Army dogs instead making them run for safety.

Many of the villager findings tough to continue living there has therefore decided to migrate to safer places away from the reach of monkeys.