Two monkeys have reportedly been captured in India for killing some 250 dogs in a murderous revenge massacre after pooches killed one of their babies.
The primate perps allegedly slaughtered the dogs by dragging them to the tops of buildings and trees in Lavool Village, about 300 miles east of Mumba, and dropping them to their deaths.
“Two monkeys involved in the killing of many puppies have been captured by a Nagpur Forest Department team in Beed,” Sachin Kand, a forest officer in Maharashtra’s Beed District, told local news agency ANI, according to New Delhi TV.
But the langur monkeys won’t exactly face criminal charges over the mass murder. Rather, they were shipped off to Nagpur to be released in a nearby forest, NDTV reported.
The scheming simians also were reported to have left puppies on roofs and trees to die of lack of food and water, the Guardian reported.
But a local official said there was no proof the monkeys had been seeking revenge.
“We do not have any proof to back up this theory. It’s animal behavior and we cannot ascertain why they are behaving like this,” the district official said, according to the news outlet.
Villagers told News 18 that the killings started about a month ago when a few dogs killed an infant monkey.
In one image of the animal war, a tiny dog can be seen in the clutches of a primate near the edge of a building.
Locals contacted Dharur’s Forest Department after the monkeys also attacked some children, creating panic, according to ANI.
The villagers decided to take action themselves and tried to wrangle up the slippery animals, but the monkeys then turned their sights on the local men, some of whom have been injured after falling from buildings while trying to save the dogs, the outlet said.