Villagers hit by monkey menace

Addanki: The temple town of Singarayakonda in Addanki mandal is plagued by monkeys and their population is alarmingly increased. The devotees and denizens are complaining to the local authorities about the attacks and looting by the animals on a regular basis.

Singarayakonda town is famous for its Prasannanjaneya Swamy temple on the hill and a number of devotees visit in large numbers to offer prayers. It has become a habit for the devotees to offer prasadam and broken coconuts to monkeys after offering prayers to Lord Hanuman n the temple. With the abundant availability of food, the population of the monkeys increased to thousands in number.

With food becoming scarce, the families of monkeys started to fight with one another and started attacking the devotees near the ghat road. The animals have also started climbing on the houses in the village, looting the eatables, damaging the materials and scaring the inmates.

Speaking to The Hans India here on Sunday, Kusuma Kumari, a villager said, “The number of monkeys in the village has increased during the past few months. We heard that the nearby villagers are also leaving monkeys caught in their villages here. The monkeys enter the house in a fraction of a second and are attacking us when we try to send them out. About 30 to 40 people in the village were bitten by the monkeys in the past few months.”

Unable to control the monkeys, the villagers started rearing and using langoors to scare them away. Ch Srinivas Kumar, the priest in the Singarakonda temple said, “Unable to bear the loss of the valuables in the house, we brought a langoor by spending Rs. 8000 to protect our house from the raids of the monkeys. People in large numbers in the village are also keeping the langoors to safeguard their houses. The local administration should initiate steps to protect the public from the monkey menace immediately.”

Requesting anonymity, a panchayat officer said, “We cannot control the monkey population as per the rules in force now. When there are edible crops in the vicinity, groups of monkeys enjoy eating them and take rest on the trees without disturbing the public.

As the area is affected by drought for the past three years, the families of the monkeys are forced to depend on the food offered by the devotees. As it is raining now, we are expecting that the situation will come under control in a few weeks.”

By naresh nandam