No monkey business allowed in Ayodhya

These will be offered to the monkeys some distance away from the site to keep them busy. Sanitation workers, home guards and animal husbandry department employees will be on the job, the official said..

Ahead of the groundbreaking for the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the authorities here have taken stock of every possible threat – including that from monkeys. An official said scores of workers will keep watch in the area around the Ram Janmabhoomi so that Ayodhya’s monkeys don’t get anywhere near the venue of the bhoomi pujan, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate on Wednesday.

Devotees going for a darshan of Ram Lalla at the makeshift temple are used to making their way to the deity through a caged gangway, partly because of the monkey menace. An official from the government’s Information department told PTI that municipal authorities and the animal husbandry department have been asked to “keep the premises safe from monkeys".

They will use catapults and wooden batons to shoo away any monkey spotted in the neighbourhood. But the most effective weapon will be gram and fruit, he said. These will be offered to the monkeys some distance away from the site to keep them busy.

Sanitation workers, home guards and animal husbandry department employees will be on the job, the official said..