It’s monkey business again at Panjab University
Monkeys are mostly seen around the boys’ hostels and residential area, especially the western side of Panjab University, and also sometimes at popular places like the Student Centre
As Panjab University (PU) bustles with activity amid the start of the 2024-25 academic session, the monkey menace is back too.
The animals can be spotted sitting on the varsity’s boundary wall with an empty forest land adjacent to it. Monkeys are mostly seen around the boys’ hostels and residential area, especially the western side of the varsity, and also sometimes at popular places like the Student Centre.
While monkeys have always been present on the campus and sometimes even wandering into hostel balconies and classes, the varsity has been struggling to deal with the issue ever since the use of langurs (leaf monkeys) was banned by the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau of the Union ministry of environment and forests in 2012. Animal activists in Chandigarh had also campaigned in 2013 asking for a ban on using langurs on the grounds, citing that it constituted cruelty to the animals, covered under Schedule 2 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, in a bid to stop the age-old practice.
Explaining the problem, former general secretary of student council Deepak Goyat said, “Monkeys have become synonymous with PU, and also frequently come towards boys’ hostel number 4,5, 6 and 7. They climb on balconies and also steal things like clothes and buckets.”
A resident of hostel number 4 himself, Goyat said most students kept their distance from the Rhesus monkeys, which moved in packs. The animals came from the forest area behind the varsity and found their way back through the same route, he added. Another student Abhishek Chauhan, who has enrolled in the MBA course, said there was a slight increase in monkeys as authorities tried to destroy their habitat. Guards posted at various departments can be commonly seen shooing the animals away, he added.
In the beginning of 2023, PU had hired three langur mimics who imitated the sound langurs make to scare away the smaller Rhesus monkeys. They were hired at DC rates. A committee had been constituted under professor Parveen Goyal to look into the matter. “While we had worked thoroughly and taken trials to ensure the effectiveness of the langur mimics, PU has a large campus. Just three mimics aren’t enough. They were majorly meant for PU’s residential area but now have to keep a check on both the north and south campus and around six such mimics are needed,” Goyal said.
He added that he was also discussing using cutouts of langurs at known places of monkey congregation, to scare them off.
PU registrar YP Verma confirmed that the three mimics were working in the varsity and they will be asked to patrol around the campus more frequently to keep monkeys at bay.
Earlier, the forest department used to catch monkeys, but after the animal’s removal from the list of protected species from October 2023 onwards, municipal corporation (MC) has also started dealing with the issue, also by employing langur mimics, as already in practice by the varsity.
Dealing with monkeys is a combined effort between MC and the UT forest department as per UT chief conservator of forests TC Nautiyal. While a recent census by the forest department said majority of the city’s monkey population resided in PU and its adjacent forest area, he said the monkeys come there because they are able to get food from hostel messes, canteens and other areas. By making food out of reach for the monkeys will make the animals move somewhere else, he added.