Monkeys enter airport through roof

On Sunday afternoon, passengers at Chennai airport were surprised to see two big monkeys in the departure hall of the domestic terminal.

The monkeys entered the terminal around 3 p.m., through one of the openings in the roof, sources said. At first, passengers were shocked but they did not panic as the monkeys did not harm them.

The State forest department and fire service personnel were called in to capture the monkeys. After hours of struggle, one of them was caught later in the day.

Meanwhile, passengers posted pictures of the monkeys on Twitter and wondered how they had crept into the terminal. One passenger, Hema Menon, tweeted: ‘Look who sneaked past security at Chennai airport. Huge gap in security, huh?’ Another passenger, K.T. Shrinath, wrote: ‘It’s the monkey that the airport is afraid of. Chennai airport monkey mania.’

An official of Airports Authority of India (AAI) said, “Initially, the monkeys hung around the trusses of the security hold area and a few hours later, personnel isolated them to an area where there is no passenger movement. We will find out how the monkeys entered the terminal and fix the openings in the roof.”

Last year, a cat chased a pigeon, killed it and managed to push some false ceiling off, in the old international terminal