By Alpana Sarma
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Police in the Indian capital said Monday the marauding “monkey man” that terrorized the city over the past week was neither man nor monkey but a result of public hysteria.
After an intensive search in which some 3,000 extra officers were put on the case, police said they had come up empty-handed in their quest for the “monkey man.”
“If there are no physical clues, then it has to be the product of a fertile mind,” assistant police commissioner Rajiv Ranjan told Reuters. “It’s nothing but fear psychosis.”
Descriptions of the nocturnal “monkey man” varied wildly with some saying it was a monkey-like creature with metallic claws while others said it was like a cat with tawny, glowing eyes. One said it had “flaming eyes and green lights on its chest.”
The persistent reports of the hybrid creature attacking people at random triggered panic in the city of 13 million and led to at least three deaths. Dozens of other residents complained they were injured by the monkey man.
Police said they were looking into the possibility that criminals or pranksters may have been involved in the scare in which three people plunged to their deaths from buildings because they thought the “monkey man” was chasing them.
At the height of the panic, vigilante groups armed with sticks patrolled the streets at night on the lookout for the creature and police announced a 50,000 rupee ($1,067) reward for information leading to the capture of the “monkey man.”
Around 348 reports complaints of sighting or attacks by the shadowy “monkey man” had been received by authorities by early Monday morning, police said.
But police said the scare appeared now to be dying down.
“Apprehension has gone down considerably. All is quiet here,” deputy police commissioner Vivek Gogia told Reuters.
All alleged victims were now being referred to psychologists and the Central Forensic Laboratory had also been asked to examine injuries, police said.
The first reported attack of the “monkey man” was on April 8 in the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh and reports of the creature later spread to Delhi.
Most of the reported attacks in Delhi took place in poorer neighborhoods where many people sleep outdoors in the sweltering summer heat.
“The moment somebody shouted “monkey man,” people would run helter-skelter which is how most injuries occurred,” Ranjan said.
