Hundreds attend monkey’s funeral in north India state

People in Basti district of India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state on Friday took out a unique funeral procession of a monkey who died because of callous attitude of the forest officials. A local resident, Ram Sumer told media persons that few mischievous children had injured the monkey however even after repeated requests the forest officials did nothing to save the monkey. “Few mischievous children had thrown a stone at the monkey which had injured him. Later, we called the forest officials and they assured us that they would send somebody to look into the matter. So an official came here and after seeing the condition of the monkey, he said that they would come again the very next day to take the monkey with them. But four days have passed and no forest official came here and due to their negligence this monkey died last night,” said Sumer. This monkey was quite popular among the locals as it was living in the village from the time it took birth. Locals used to feed him and called him ‘Rancho’. As the news of his death spread in the village people in large numbers paid visit to see the monkey for one last time and decided to carry out his last rites according to the Hindu rituals. In Hindu traditions, among the animals, monkeys are given godly status and worshipped across the world. The villagers appealed to the provincial authorities to take strict action against the irresponsible forest officials for whom the monkey allegedly died.