Rampur, Jul 6 (IANS): It was this monkey’s day on Wednesday when he became rich – albeit for a short time.

A man, Sharafat Hussain, had come to the registry office for some work and had parked his motorcycle.

He sat on a bench at some distance, browsing through some papers. A monkey appeared on the scene, sat on the motorcycle and then started searching the bags of motorcycles parked there.

He found a bag in Shafat Hussain’s motorcycle and scampered away with it.

The bag contained Rs one lakh and when Hussain realised that his bag was missing, he panicked.

By then, the monkey had climbed on to a nearby tree. The crowd that had gathered on the spot, tried to retrieve the bag from the monkey.

After some time, the animal was chased away and Hussain managed to get his bag back with the money intact.

The district administration said that in view of the increasing monkey menace in Shahabad, a team will now be hired to catch the simians and release them in the forest.

Shahabad Deputy Collector Anil Kumar said that in a bid to tackle the monkey menace, the monkeys will be caught and released in the forests at the tehsil level.