Farmer shoots son dead, mistaking him for monkey

A farmer in southern Nepal mistook his son
for a monkey trying to steal his crops and
shot the 12-year-old dead, police in
Kathmandu said on Sunday.

Chitra Bahadur Pulami had been climbing a
tree to chase away macaques that had
become a nuisance to the family but his father
Gupta Bahadur, 55, spotted the boy and
opened fire, wrongly believing him to be one of
the animals.

“The son was hiding in a tree at their farm to
chase away monkeys that used to come
searching for food in the maize field,” said
Arun Poudel, deputy superintendent of police
in the remote Arghakhanchi district

“The son died on the spot after Gupta Bahadur
mistakenly thought there was a monkey in the
tree and opened fire. Our preliminary
investigation shows that the father was
unaware that his son had gone to the maize
field to chase the monkeys.

“Both Gupta Bahadur and the gun that he
used in shooting his son are now under the
custody of the police.”

The three species of monkey native to Nepal,
the rhesus and Assamese macaque and the
common langur, are considered sacred and
farmers normally try to scare them away from
their crops without injuring the animals.

“I realised my mistake only when my son fell
down and got stuck in one of the tree’s
branches,” the farmer was quoted as telling
police by the Nepali nagariknews.com website
after the incident, on Friday.

(AFP News)