Silchar, June 9 (IANS): At least 13 monkeys have been found dead in a reservoir in southern Assams Cachar district. Officials said on Tuesday that the deaths were due to "consumption of poison".

Veterinary department official Rubel Das said the bodies of 13 monkeys were found floating in a reservoir of the Katirail water supply plant of the public health engineering department early on Monday.

"During the post mortem of the monkeys, toxic substances (poison) were found. For further confirmation we will now send the samples of the dead monkeys to the veterinary department's Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Khanapara (Guwahati)," Das told IANS.

After photographs and videos of the dead monkeys went viral on social media, forest department officials immediately recovered the bodies and sent the samples to the veterinary department for testing.

The incident created panic among the people as water was supplied from a nearby plant.

An engineer of the public health engineering department said the water tank connected with the reservoir, where the bodies of the monkeys were found, had been abandoned long back.

Forest officials suspected that miscreants might have poisoned the reservoir with an "ulterior motive".