The Monkey Man of Delhi

May of 2001 people reported a 4 foot monkey man with black fur, metal helmet & claws, and three buttons on its chest was attacking people. This goes along with mass hysteria like we looked at in class, especially the case of the Chupacabra. Different reports sat that there was either 2 or 3 deaths or over 15 minor injuries. The fact that this happened in the New Delhi shows how hysteria can affect any region.
The populace was in such a state that the number of fake calls, intentional or not, lead to a shortage of police to respond to all the calls. CNN mentions that “police have blamed the panic on uneducated poor people, many of them superstitious and strong believers in the supernatural”. A Hindu mystic was even beaten to death during this fit mass hysteria.
This was most likely in my opinion either local monkeys which can and will attack people, a single person who did attack a someone in the first case, or a group of people who did it as either a joke or for fun.

Sources:
http://listverse.com/2009/03/16/top-10-bizarre-cases-of-mass-hysteria/
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/05/16/india.monkeyman/