OLL LEWIS: The New Dehli Monkey Man Panic

In May 2001 residents of New Dehli came under attack from a strange creature. The creature; if indeed it was a creature; caused more harm to the population due to the mass panic that followed in its wake than it was personally responsible for. The animal was dubbed 'The Monkey Man' by the media and differing reports as to the monkey man's appearance surfaced in the city.

The police described it as 4-foot-6 with a dark coat of hair, but some eyewitnesses described a very different-sounding beast describing it as 5-foot-6 and wearing black clothes with a sports helmet and glowing red eyes. If the eyewitness statements were truthful then this would suggest that rather than a monkey, the creature was a man hoping to cause panic by dressing in a sinister manner and harassing people, similar to Spring-heeled Jack in Victorian London.

The first time the monkey man was seen was on the 13th of May 2001 when he was allegedly responsible for minor injuries to 15 people, including bites scratches and bruises. This was the only day upon which the monkey man is said to have actually physically harmed anyone; all other accidents, injuries and even the following deaths were caused by the mass panic that followed in the wake of these incidents.

Within two days fear had taken hold of the local populous and a pregnant woman fell to her death in a stairwell after neighbours saw her running and shouting about having seen the monkey man. The next casualty would be a four-foot-tall wandering Hindu mystic who was beaten by a crowd who mistook him for the monkey man, and a similar fate befell a van driver who sustained multiple fractures during his beating.

After a few days without incident the monkey man and the resulting panic he had caused was quietly forgotten and the police did not arrest anyone for the panic, subscribing to the theory that the initial attacks that caused the panic were likely a combination of animal attacks and in some cases just common accidents. Further sightings of the monkey man were made in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, in February 2002 and in New Dehli once more in July 2002, but as it has not been seen since it is probable that whatever caused the panic of 2001, creature or man, it has probably moved on.