Monkey police to protect VIP visitor
Guards armed with catapults will be deployed at the Taj Mahal to ward off rabid monkeys as India gears up to put on a show for Donald Trump.
The United States president will make a detour during his two-day trip to India to visit the country’s biggest tourist attraction. Alongside the usual security arrangements for visiting heads of state, patrols are being put in place to protect the American entourage from aggressive monkeys living at the 17thcentury mausoleum.
Some 700 rhesus macaques live among the sprawling ruins and gardens of the complex in Agra, and they present a growing menace to millions of tourists who visit each year.
Gangs of monkeys seeking food regularly attack visitors. A newborn baby was seized and killed in the area in 2018. Two French tourists needed rabies shots after being bitten monkeys the same year.
Guards with slingshots have been deployed at the site since then. Local police said attempts to drive the animals off the grounds altogether had proved futile.
The monkey patrol is part of last-minute preparations under way before Trump’s arrival on Tuesday.
Thousands of litres of fresh water are being pumped into the Yamuna River upstream from Agra in an attempt to freshen the smell of putrid water and raw sewage as it passes the Taj.
In the western city of Ahmedabad, where Trump will attend a rally with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, authorities have hastily built a wall to conceal a slum, after dozens of families were evicted from another slum. – The Times by