Monkeys have been wrecking havoc in the campus of Panjab University for quite some time now, especially in hostels and offices various departments in the campus.
Besides intruding into various hostels at will, monkeys sometimes even destroy official documents in offices. They have been found sitting under the chairs of officials in their offices, scratching pedestrians and snatching from them, pulling the sleeves of people.
Even parked vehicles are not spared by rampaging monkeys with few cars was parked behind Ghandhian Studies department getting scratched and side mirrors broken by monkeys. Classroom teaching also comes to a halt many a time due to the menace.
“Monkey menace is so common in our hostel that sometimes I wonder if I sneak into their hostel and not they,” a hostler of Girls Hostel No. 7, Twinkle Vaid said.
“One day a monkey entered my room and started fiddling with my cosmetics and took away my earphones leaving the ear buds. Seriously, some monkey catcher should be appointed since the issue is getting gruesome,” Twinkle further said.
Another student of Boys hostel No 4, Ujjwal Sharma said, “I have faced some troublesome experiences with monkeys in Panjab University hostel. My towel was thrown many times from my hostel balcony and nearly escaped bite from them”.
An outsider Anmol Dandyan, who is a frequent visitor to the campus to meet his friends and use other facilities like food said, “I was reading newspaper and eating sandwich in student centre,a monkey snatched my sandwich and threw it and even once when I was waiting for my friend a monkey slapped me on my face behind the boys hostel no 5.”
It isn’t that the authorities aren’t bothered about it. An amount of approximately Rs 44,000 is being spent every month to curb this problem and about six persons have been employed by Dean Student Welfare(DSW) to shoo them away.
But as people constantly feed these animals as a gesture of kindness which further aggravates this problem for they grow habitual to a place. Catapults, firecrackers and many other methods have been tried, but to no avail.