Chennai, December 14, 2014 : .Officials from Tamil Nadu’s forest department have rescued a baby monkey from a begging ring at Chennai’s Marina beach.
The monkey was being used to beg by two children who gave the slip to wildlife officers and police. This rescued monkey is a Bonnet Macaque (Macaca radiate), and it falls under Schedule II (Part I, Wildlife Protection Act of 1972).
According to forest officials, anyone found with these monkeys is likely to face a 3 year sentence in prison plus a Rs.25,000 penalty for the first offense and 7 years imprisonment for repeat offenders.
Regular beachgoers complained that monkeys and children were being used to beg and there was an organized racket.
Sundararajan is a software engineer and spends many evenings on Marina Beach after the opening.
He said to IANS that children come looking for alms, and grab our legs.They won’t let go of us unless we give them money.
It seems that this is not normal and police officers only intervene if we file a complaint.Poor feeding results in baby monkeys that don’t even want to look up from children.
Forest officials said that the baby monkeys are caught using traps from the forest areas of Tamil Nadu including Nilgiris and brought to Chennai for begging.
A senior police officer with the Marina beach police station told IANS, “We detained a few children a few days back but they were pleading and crying.There has to be a proper investigation to get to the bottom of this racket and unless it is done, things will continue like this.”
However, child rights activists said that police and the begging mafia are hands in glove and there seems to be a cut for the local police to continue their begging unhindered.
Jossey Jose, a child rights activist working among children, told IANS, “The police is looking the other way as there seems to be a nexus between the police and the begging mafia.Kids are mostly from north Indian states and as we had warned earlier, the pandemic has increased the flow of children to south Indian states or rather illegal migration of children, and unless a properly organised crackdown is implemented, this will continue.”
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