A trained monkey nicknamed "Rambo" was "hired" by civic authorities to help rid India's federal Ministries of Health and Urban Development in New Delhi of an army of marauding monkeys.
In two months, officials said, "Rambo", whose real name is Raju, successfully dispatched scores of monkeys from Nirman Bhawan in the city centre, where they have lived for decades. Employees could at last move around freely, no longer walking the corridors in fear of being set upon, they said.
Known for his aggressive tactics, Raju growled menacingly at the monkeys, charged at them and, at times, engaged them in bloody encounters.
His keeper Shyam Kumar is paid 5,000 rupees ($108) per month for Raju's services.
For years before Raju was "hired", authorities unsuccessfully tried erecting expensive fencing to keep out the monkeys, fed them bananas laced with tranquillisers and even hired professional catchers. But they were unable to stop them terrorising and biting people, smashing windows, tearing up files and stealing lunch boxes.
Shooting them was ruled out. Hindu religious sentiment associates monkeys with Hanuman, the mythical monkey god who helped Lord Rama defeat Ravana, the evil king. India is dotted with tens of thousands of Hanuman temples and every Tuesday is reserved for his worship. Anyone trying to catch monkeys is frequently beaten up or chased away.
Thousands of monkeys inhabit government buildings in Delhi, including the Prime Minister's office and several city hospitals, such as the All India Institute of Medical Science, where they have been known to chase nurses and patients down miles of corridors.
Doctors said patients in postoperative wards have sometimes surfaced after anaesthesia to find a monkey sharing their bed or playing with their glucose drip.
Monkeys "arrested" for harassing people in northern Punjab state are regularly locked up in a special "jail" for varying periods before being declared fit to be released back into society.
Wildlife officials running the "monkey jail" said they were inundated with complaints about ruffian monkeys from across Punjab but did not have enough staff to make arrests. There are around 50,000 monkeys in Punjab, almost all wild. Their numbers increased since monkey exports were banned in the late 1980s.
One "hard case" inmate, arrested from the campus of Punjab Agricultural University at Ludhiana for attacking students and imprisoned in the jail at Patiala, 200 miles north of New Delhi, has been there for nearly a year. Another ferocious pair, "snatched " from a local neighbourhood for stealing handbags, are reportedly being considered for parole.
Led by ringleaders, usually the biggest and most vicious of the pack, monkey gangs chalk out fiefdoms in crowded neighbourhoods across the state, spreading terror.
Wildlife officials said truck drivers, who chained monkeys to their vehicles as guards, had maltreated several "gang leaders". Once they turned violent, they were released in populated areas.
