With strategically placed cutouts of langurs, ITBP counters monkey menace at Delhi's Chhatarpur Covid Care Centre

New Delhi [India], May 18 (ANI): The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) has placed cutouts of langurs in a bid to counter the monkey menace in and around the premises of the 500 bedded Sardar Patel Covid Care Centre in New Delhi's Chhatarpur.

ITBP sources told ANI that the cutouts of langurs, a species of monkeys native to the Indian subcontinent, seem very effective as of now in keeping monkey troupes away from entering the premises of the COVID-19 care centre.

Sources said that in the past few days before the cutouts were placed, SPCC witnessed troupes of monkeys roaming around, occasionally getting angry and attacking the personnel deployed, specifically people who are deployed in PPE kits.

These cutouts are randomly rotated daily to the new places across the centre so that the monkey groups can not guess these being static and are not real, they added.

Run by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the centre started operations earlier in the day with the admissions of patients. The SPCCC, which was set up last year during the first COVID-19 wave, was shut down after the cases were brought under control.

Delhi has reported 6,734 new COVID-19 cases, 10,918 recoveries and 340 deaths, the Union Health Ministry informed on Tuesday in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that the active number of COVID cases in the national capital stands at 56,049. With the new fatalities, the COVID death toll in the state has mounted to 21,846. (ANI)