A doctor who conducted the post-mortem said there were no injury marks on the child's body and "it appears to be a case of asphyxia due to drowning."
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| A two-week-old infant was allegedly snatched by a monkey in Cuttack, Odisha, in India. In this photo, a monkey looks into the mirror of a motorbike near a temple in Jaipur in the Indian state of Rajasthan, Dec. 16, 2016. Photo: Getty Images/ DOMINIQUE FAGET |
By Pritha Paul, International Business Times
A two-week-old infant was allegedly snatched by a monkey in Cuttack,
Odisha, in India on Saturday. After a 24-hour-long search by the
authorities, the lifeless remains of the child was located inside a well
near his house.
The incident took place around 6 a.m. local time
(8:30 p.m. EDT Friday) when he was sleeping beside his mother in his
Talabasta village home.
[post_ads]“The monkey took the baby from inside a
mosquito net. It [the monkey] was spotted by Sarojini [the child’s
mother], who immediately had raised an alarm, but the creature jumped
over the roof and disappeared from her view,” child's aunt Rajnandini
Nayak told reporters, according to news daily Indian Express.
Law
enforcement was alerted and the forest department and fire services
personnel rushed to the scene, where they immediately launched a massive
search and rescue mission, with the help of the villagers, by combing
the nearby forest for the missing child.
Three teams — which
included 30 forest personnel — led by Sangram Keshari Mohanty, the
ranger of the Damapada Forest Range, faced a difficult time locating the
primate or the baby due to a particular complication.
"As the
child has trouble crying, we cannot hear his voice. It has, therefore,
become difficult for us to trace him in the forest,” said one of the
forest officials involved in the search, Business Standard reported.
Because of his inability to cry since birth, the baby was admitted to
a pediatrics hospital and had come home just three days before the
incident occurred.
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During the search, forest officials checked the
house and the surrounding neighborhood, including the well where the
body was later discovered Sunday, and found nothing.
The body was
later seen by the child's aunt first in the well. As the police
investigate how the body ended up in the well — which usually remains
covered — the infant's father, Ramakrushna Nayak, guessed “the baby may
have slipped from the monkey’s grip.”
The father’s thoughts were echoed by the police.
“Most
probably, the monkey had dropped off the baby in the well soon after it
took off,” said Biswaranjan Sahoo, inspector of Banki police station,
daily newspaper Hindustan Times reported. “The body has now been sent to a local hospital for post-mortem.”
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According to BBC, a
doctor who was part of the autopsy said there were no injury marks on
his body and "it appears to be a case of asphyxia due to drowning."
The
police are yet to capture the rogue monkey who reportedly stole the
baby. The authorities could not even zero in on the particular species
of the animal — which could be either a Grey Langur (black-faced monkey
with light brown fur) or Rhesus Macaque (reddish-pink face with auburn
or dusty-brown fur), both of which are commonly found in Odisha.
Nayak,
the kid’s father laid splayed in a prostrate position since Saturday as
he prayed for the safety of his child before a local goddess. The
family was overwhelmed with grief after they were told the 15-day-old
member of household was dead.
There were a number of instances in
the past weeks where monkeys had attacked people of the village. The
locals complained the forest department took little action to address
the matter and ensure the safety of the villagers.
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