Haryana: Groom gifted langur as wedding present booked under Wildlife Act

As per the act, langurs cannot be owned, traded, bought, sold or hired out. Violation of this law entails one to seven years in jail or a Rs 25,000 fine or both.

Presented a langur as a wedding gift, a 26-year-old man from Haryana’s Fatehabad district has been booked under the Wildlife Protection Act for possessing the simian.

The family members sitting with the Langoor gifted to them, a picture of Langoor.

Sanjay Poonia, resident of Tohana town in district Fatehabad, was gifted the animal by his in-laws on Thursday after his wedding to a Jind woman, Ritu, on February 11.

Wildlife inspector Jaiwinder Nehra said he got to know of the man keeping a langur in his house through media reports, and informed the police. Cops arrived at Sanjay’s house on Friday and took the simian in their custody.

Nehra said Sanjay was booked under Sections 9, 39 and 52 of the Wildlife Protection Act that listed langur under Schedule-II as a protected species. As per the act, langurs cannot be owned, traded, bought, sold or hired out. Violation of this law entails one to seven years in jail or a Rs 25,000 fine or both.

He said sub-inspector (SI) Rajbir Singh of Haryana police will now investigate the matter and find out who sold the animal to Sanjay’s in-laws. “A team of doctors will examine the langur on Saturday, following which it will be sent to a zoo,” Nehra added.

On his part, Sanjay said he had taken his father-in-law Chandi Ram, resident of Dohanakhera village in Jind district, to his agriculture fields when the latter came to his village to finalise the wedding.

“My father-in-law had noticed the monkey menace in the fields, and I had told him I will soon bring a langur as the animal helped drive away monkeys. The idea clicked with him immediately, and my in-laws gifted me a langur as a wedding present on Thursday,” he added.

His father Karamveer Poonia said they are not aware about the Wildlife Protection Act, and they had not harmed the animal.