Now,monkey men rumours claim two lives in Kandivali
Though the Mumbai Police have dismissed rumours of monkey men terrorising localities in the eastern and western suburbs,two men from Kandivali lost their lives on Monday night in the melee and stampede-like situation that followed an alleged sighting in the area.
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Though the Mumbai Police have dismissed rumours of monkey men terrorising localities in the eastern and western suburbs,two men from Kandivali lost their lives on Monday night in the melee and stampede-like situation that followed an alleged sighting in the area.
Additional Commissioner of Police (North) Ramrao Pawar confirmed that such rumours were doing the rounds and they had asked people to stop believing them. While rumours that monkey men who can climb tall trees with ease and jump over rooftops were trying to break into homes and kill residents before committing robberies began from the Mulund-Bhandup area,they have now gradually spread to other areas,the police said.
On Monday night,residents of Tulaskarwadi in Kandivali (West) claimed to have spotted a dark-complexioned man running on their roofs. The incident took place around 8.30 pm when Radhika Bhagiya (17) and her friends,all SSC students,were studying in a room. Bhagiya said she was sitting beside the window when a well-built and dark-skinned man put his arms through the window and tried to grab her.
I panicked and rushed down with my friends. The terrace door was locked so the man jumped onto the roof and ran away, said Bhagiya who went to the Kandivali police station and registered a non-cognisable complaint.
Before that around 6.30 pm,a woman heard footsteps on her roof and called up her son Narendra Patel (24),asking him to hurry home as she was afraid he might be the monkey man. Patel,who panicked and rushed home,crashed his motorcycle into a truck and died, said an officer from the Kandivali police station.
Around 11.30 pm,another man died due to the panic in the area. Rajesh Chavan (25) had come to stay at his in-laws residence. The family was having dinner when locals of the nearby Sai Nagar area began yelling that the monkey man had been spotted there.
Chavan,his wife and in-laws ran outside the house to nab the man when he slipped on the tiles of the congested lanes of the chawl and fell on his back,breaking his spinal cord. A crowd of around 50 residents were running on the narrow lane at the time.
Chavan was rushed to Bhagwati Hospital in Borivali,where he was declared dead on arrival.
The Kandivali police have registered an accidental death report and claimed that some residents were spreading rumours and creating terror.
On February 20,a police constable was injured in stone-pelting on Kurar police station by an angry mob after residents of Malad (East) demanded that three alleged robbers held by the police be handed over to them to be lynched. This,however,was not the first time that angry residents in an area have resorted to vigilante justice to allegedly bring a robber to justice following rumours. On February 12,a 37-year-old man who had gone to meet his brother at his Ghatkopar residence was beaten up by around 20-25 residents. The victim Ravindra More was wearing shorts,leading locals to believe that he was a member of the chaddi baniyan gang rumoured to be robbing houses in the Ghatkopar-Mulund stretch.
A mentally challenged person was beaten up by residents in Bhandup on February 8 after he was mistaken for a thief.
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