A 10-year-old boy died after a group of monkeys tore out his intestines in a village in Gujarat, India. Dipak Thakor was attacked while playing with friends near a temple in Gandhinagar in November 2023, according to reports by NDTV.
The monkeys had been terrorising the small village of Salki, and Dipak succumbed to his injuries after being rushed to hospital. Medical staff declared him dead on arrival.
Attack details and official response
A local official told the Press Trust of India: "His intestine was ripped out in the attack. He rushed (back) to his house and was taken to a hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival."
The official added: "This is the third attack by monkeys in the village within a week."
Forest official Vishal Chaudhary confirmed that the department had been trying to catch the monkeys in the village. He said: "We have rescued two langurs in the past one week, and set up cages to trap another langur. There is a large troop of monkeys in the village, including four adults who have been involved in attacks in the past one week. Two of them have been rescued. Efforts are on to cage another."
Other monkey attacks in India
This was not the only fatal attack by monkeys in India. In December 2021, two monkeys were captured by the forest department in Maharashtra after they allegedly killed young puppies. Residents in Lavool village in Beed district described it as an 'act of revenge', saying the monkeys had carried puppies up trees and rooftops and hurled them to their deaths.
In another incident, a monkey had a bounty of 21,000 Indian Rupees placed on its head after terrorising residents in Rajgarh in Madhya Pradesh. The ape had reportedly attacked 20 people in a fortnight, and a rescue team used a drone to track it down before tranquilising it with darts and securing it in a cage.
In a separate case, a three-year-old was snatched by a monkey that hauled the child up a cliff. Police found the toddler after a several-hour search, and the child was safely rescued and reunited with the parents, according to the New York Post.
