Indian City Gripped by 'Monkey' Business

ByABC News
May 16, 2001, 12:08 PM

May 16 -- At first, residents of New Delhi wondered if they were simply going bananas in the scorching heat of the Indian summer.

Certainly, the reports of people being attacked by a hairy, ape-like creature approximately 4 feet tall seemed like an episode out of X Files or, closer to home, a chapter of the mythological epic Mahabharata.

But over the past three nights, media reports said dozens were injured in the mysterious attacks and two people jumped to their deaths in a panic. Delhi police recorded 39 calls of attacks by the so-called monkey man from panicked residents of eastern Delhi.

On Monday night, a pregnant woman slipped while fleeing a panicked scene where a "sighting" reportedly occurred. She later died in a city hospital.

The death, along with pictures in the local dailies of victims with scratch marks on their upper torsos, have shaken Delhites many of whom initially dismissed the occurrences as "superstitious mumbo-jumbo."

The weather only added to concerns. Power outages in summer are common in Delhi, forcing residents of congested lower-income housing projects to sleep on rooftops to beat the heat.

And the darkness not only added to the mass panic, it also contributed to an astonishing variety of descriptions of the strange "creature."

A Man, a Monkey, or a Cat?

Descriptions by witnesses reported in local dailies often portrayed the mysterious creature as a hairy simian. But other descriptions included an agile, feline-like creature, an individual covered from head-to-toe in bandages and in one case, a mysterious being wearing a helmet.

Multiple sightings of the "creature" in over short time frames has led to speculation more than one creature involved in the attacks.

The rich variety of descriptions has predictably not gone down well with rank-and-file police officers, who blamed the panic on the superstitious beliefs of poor, largely uneducated people.

"There is no identification or description to depend on," a police officer told the Hindustan Times. "Not content with the fact that we had to keep running after false calls all through the night, we are now being asked to continue the hunt for the next couple of days."