New Dehli - A monkey with a taste for tipple is terrorising parts of the northern Indian city of Lucknow, reports said on Friday.
The simian boozer goes on a biting rampage if it does not get its daily dose of liquor, the Asian Age newspaper reported.
More than a dozen people have been bitten by the ape. Last week it chomped off the ear of a seven-year-old boy.
Frightened residents of the city's Rajajipuram area have stopped sending their children to school and people going to work move through the area in groups, armed with sticks.
A local resident said some teenage boys of the locality were responsible for the monkey menace.
He said the monkey was a peaceable creature until one day the boys caught it and forced liquor down its throat. The boys enjoyed watching its drunken behaviour and it became a routine for them to get the monkey drunk.
Soon the boys got bored with the monkey and stopped giving it drinks, but the addicted ape turned violent when it did not receive its daily dose.
Efforts to trap the hard-drinking monkey have been unsuccessful and under Indian wildlife laws the animals are protected.
Hindus consider monkeys to be sacred as incarnations of the ape god Hanuman.
