The products that would be seriously affected due to this move include a protein that would have helped soldiers manning the Kargil sector and the high ranges in Jammu and Kashmir and an indigenous and low cost drug to combat cancer, sources at National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) said.

Armed with an order from Delhi-based committee for the purpose of control and supervision of experiment on animals, the animal right activists took NCLAS officials by surprise when they descended on the sprawling NIN campus, where the animal house is located. After a stand-off and heated exchange of words, the NCLAS officials finally gave in. The Delhi-based committee comes directly under ManekaGandhi.

Volunteers of the city based Blue Cross and officials of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said the monkeys would be released in the jungles of Sirpur Kagaz Nagar in Andhra Pradesh as part of their `rehabilitation and retirement plans'.

Scientists said with this move the development of Interferon, a key anti-cancer drug, would have to be put on hold. The drug being developed by city-based Shantha Biotech, is in an advanced stage of research.

The shell-shocked Shanta Biotech officials described the act as reckless and said a low cost indigenous anti-cancer drug would now be denied to a vast section of the suffering Indian patients. At present, the drug is being imported at an exorbitant cost, it is said.

Sources at NIN and Shanta Biotech are smelling a rat in the sudden love for monkeys at NCLAS. They did not rule out the hand of multinational drug firms which are making a bonanza with imported Interferon. If Shanta Biotech Interferon would have hit the market, theMNCs would have been out of the Interferon race, sources said.

Senior researchers at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) expressed dismay and shock at the day's developments. ``On the one hand the Government wants indigenous drugs and on the other, research efforts are thwarted by such senseless moves'', a senior scientist said.

Ironically, Amala Akkineni of the Blue Cross had visited the NCLAS and found the unit ``very superbly maintained facility for a sad but prevalent need''.

Researchers have expressed serious doubts whether the monkeys that are going to be released into the forests would survive in the first place as most of these monkeys have been fed on lab food and kept under highly controlled conditions. They would fall prey to wild animals in the forest, Dr Kamal Naidu, director of a centre of the World Wide Fund-India (WWF), said.

The main controversy surrounds the way the monkeys were being caged and treated at the animal house. ``We are not against trials, but what we areinsisting is the NIN should follow the rules of the land'', SPCA's Vasantha Vadi said while removing the monkeys.

``The facilities are abysmal'', she added.

However, the NIN director Kamala Krishnaswamy refuted these allegations and said that the animals were being treated as per norms. ``We even accepted a suggestion by animal right activists to construct `monkey runs', and the plant is in the final stages'', she said.