Second monkey at airport caught

Officials placed another monkey in a cage along with fruits and groundnuts to lure the animal

January 28, 2015 07:43 am | Updated 07:43 am IST - CHENNAI:

The second of the two monkeys that entered Chennai airport on Sunday was finally caught on Tuesday.

After the two animals were seen in the departure hall of the domestic terminal on Sunday, a team of fire service personnel and State forest department officials managed to catch one the same evening.

On Monday, in an attempt to catch the other, they placed a cage with fruits in the terminal. But, the monkey refused to come anywhere near it.

Forest ranger S. Davidraj said, “So, on Tuesday, we put a one-and-a-half-year-old monkey in the cage with bananas, grapes and groundnuts. The animal that was hiding finally came out at noon.”

The monkeys — one aged two and the other, two-and-a-half — are at the Velachery Rescue Centre now, he added. Officials plan to let the monkeys go free in the forest soon.

An Airports Authority of India (AAI) official said, “The monkeys are unlikely to have entered through the roof as we had plugged all the holes in it. We will figure out how they came in.”

362 kg of gold seized

The customs department seized illegal contraband gold estimated to be worth Rs.100 crore at Chennai airport during the last year, chief commissioner of customs S. Ramesh said on Tuesday. This is a significant increase over the Rs. 35 crore worth illegal gold seized in 2013. Around 362 kg of gold was seized in 2014 compared to 113 kg the previous year.

He said the department has been taking various steps to improve surveillance at the airport.

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