PETA attacks MCD for deploying langurs at C'Wealth Games venues

The MCD might be banking on "langurs", a giant monkey with a black face, to keep away free-roaming simians from the Commonwealth Games venues, but the move has not gone down well with a prominent animal rights group.

"The callous use of langurs as slaves for these Games is not the kind of public relations that the country needs at the time when it is showcasing itself to the world," People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) said in a letter to MCD commissioner K C Mehra.

Pointing to the plight of the chained langurs, the organisation said, "their use as slaves will deprive them of their natural homes and families. Langurs would never naturally obey humans.

"Methods such as beating animals and constantly threatening them with physical punishment or food deprivation are often used to keep them compliant."

The MCD could have used noise makers and air horns to keep the monkeys away as also fake dummy langurs, it added.

The civic agency has deployed 38 langurs which will be making rounds of all Games venues facing monkey menace.