To shoo away monkeys, villagers in UP's Shahjahanpur dress up as bears
Shahjahanpur (UP): Locals in a village in Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur district have devised a novel way to drive away monkeys, with some of them dressing up as bears.
The problem of monkeys at Sikandarpur Afghan village under Jalalabad tehsil became so rampant that it figured during a recent tehsil diwas programme, which is organised by the district administration to resolve grievances of the people.
The affected villagers have complained that monkeys have damaged crops, taken away edible items from their homes and even bitten some children.
To solve the issue, two youth have been tasked with wearing bear costumes to go around the village and shoo away the simians.
Locals also claimed that monkeys are fearful of bears and more than half of the primate population in the village has fled the place, as a result.
Ashok Kushwaha, a resident of the village said, "Almost an year ago, a complaint was registered with officials. At the time, a team of forest department officials came and talks were held with a Mathura-based firm to catch the monkeys at the rate of Rs 300 per monkey."
Yet, the plan could not materialise as the number of monkeys was quite high, he added.The forest department, however, has a different view.
District Forest Officer Adarsh Kumar told PTI, "Nobody is catching the monkeys. They are only driving them away by dressing as bears. So far, no complaint has been registered to catch monkeys."
He added that permission to catch the monkeys will be issued if any complaint is made.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
