Compiled by  C.ARUNO, BENJAMIN LEE AND R.ARAVINTAN

A TROOP of monkeys snatched an infant sleeping in his cot and carried him off before dropping him into a water tank, causing him to drown, Makkal Osai reported.

The two-month-old boy was asleep on the verandah of his home in Sitapur city located in India’s Uttar Pradesh state when the monkeys entered the house and “abducted” him.

His parents heard his cries coming from the roof.

They scrambled to look for the baby and eventually found him in a water tank on the roof terrace.

The family rushed the infant to the hospital but doctors said he had already drowned.

Villagers of Surajpur where the horrifying incident happened have demanded that the state government take action to contain the threat by the monkeys.

(The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.)