Brick hurled by monkey kills youth, family gets Rs 13 lakh compensation

The family of an 18-year-old youth from Chandigarh who died after being hit by a brick hurled by a monkey, from the roof of a building, will be given a compensation of Rs 13 lakh.

The directions for compensation have been issued by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Chandigarh in response to a petition filed by his family.

On that ill-fated day in March three years ago, Amarjit Singh Harry was standing outside a garment store in the busy sector 22 market, Chandigarh. A monkey sitting on the roof picked up a brick and hurled it down. The brick hit Amarjit's head causing serious injuries. He was rushed to the state of the art PGI hospital where he died a few days later.

Amarjit’s family said it was the responsibility of the local authorities to ensure that the city was free from monkey menace for the safety of its resident. Local civic authorities including the Chandigarh municipal corporation are to bear the cost of compensation.

Chandigarh and its adjoining satellite townships of Panchkula and Mohali are ridden with the problem of monkeys invading homes and public places in search of food. Certain organizations, including the premier hospital PGI and Panjab University where the problem was rampant, had hired long-tailed Langoors to drive away monkeys.

In other places, residents experimented with employing trained people who would scream imitating sounds made by Langoors throughout the day to scare the monkeys away. The administration in the union territory of Chandigarh has often issued advisories to deal with the escalating monkey menace, including one which suggested placing plastic snake fixtures on roofs of houses on the assumption that monkeys are scared of snakes and would flee.