(ABMSS) has expressed its “utter” sense of “horror”, “dismay”, “outrage” and “abhorrence” over the police action in Kantwal.

Meeting in an emergency extraordinary session atop a Banyan tree along the Patna – Mussafarnagar national highway, ABMSS has called the police firing “barbaric”, “atrocious”, “unprovoked” and “reminiscent of the worst excesses during the emergency” and it has sent urgent telegrams to the President and the Prime Minister urging their immediate intervention to secure monkeys’ legitimate interests and aspirations. It has also demanded the immediate setting up of a Court of Enquiry headed by a sitting High Court Judge or a retired Supreme Court Judge to probe the Kantwal incident and bring the guilty speedily to book besides an ex – gratia compensation of 6 ripe bananas and a bag of roasted Bengal gram to each of the monkeys injured in the police firing.

Briefing newsmen, a spokesmonkey said that under the Tinish Mukar dispensation in Bihar, atrocities on monkeys were on the increase and warned that if this was not unchecked, monkeys might resort to direct action including picketing government offices and gheraoing ministers. The spokesmonkey also said that taking the matter to the UN General Assembly is also one of the options open to the monkeys. The spokesmonkey also warned that monkeys were being alienated from the national mainstream because of increased atrocities against them by the official machinery.

Narrating the sequence of events leading to the Mussafarnagar incident, the spokesmonkey said that a few monkeys were peacefully prancing about in the trees, playfully snatching spectacles and tiffin – carriers from passersby when a posse of heavily armed policemen descended on them and a Sub – Inspector whom it identified as one Manga Ram began to tweak the tail of a baby rhesus monkey thereby causing it to squeal in pain. When its mother protested, SI Manga Ram brought down his regulation lathi on her.

The spokesmonkey alleged that many adult rhesus and bob tailed monkeys were taken into unlawful custody and brutally tortured. They were repeatedly told, “We’ll deport you to the United States where they will conduct live experiments on you,” causing the monkeys to cower in fear.

Strongly refuting the monkeys’ version of the Mussafarnagar incident, the Director General of Bihar Police told a hastily summoned press conference that a few off – duty constables attached to the Kantwal police station were idling away time administering the third degree to under - trials and extracting false confessions from them when a horde of unruly monkeys descended on them through the skylight and started making monkey faces. When the constables protested against this indignity, the monkeys snatched the lunch box belonging to the Station House Officer. When repeated appeals to the monkeys to disperse peacefully went unheeded, the policemen were forced to open fire in the air with their monkey guns. The DGP categorically denied that any monkey had been injured in the firing calling it “poppycock” and “typical monkey propaganda.”

The Government is expected to announce its decision about the Commission of Enquiry in the next few days.

S. Raghunath