The injured baby monkey who had been rescued from a Chinsurah school on Wednesday could not be reunited with her mother the day after.

But she has found a new home and a name - Sundori.

Chandan Clement Singh had rescued the baby monkey, which had been hanging by a nylon wire entangled in a hook atop a metal fence on the perimeter wall of Vivekananda Shishu Siksha Mandir, and taken her home for treatment.

On Thursday, he brought the baby back to the school but could not find the mother monkey there.

"I have decided to keep the baby home. I will hand her over to forest department officials if they come to me," Singh said. "But I could not have left the baby near the school because it is not even a month old and dogs or monkeys would have killed her."

Singh, 45, an animal lover, stays in nearby Bandel. While he had tried to snap the wire and bring the baby monkey down, its mother had chattered and banged on the grille of the school corridor. She had even leapt on to the cornices of the school building and had tried to peer inside to find out if her baby was safe.

The school had to be closed when about a dozen monkeys descended on the premises. Singh had slipped out through the back door with the baby monkey.

"People told us that the mother was roaming in the school compound till late in the evening," Singh said. "But we could not find her when we went in the morning. I have asked the school authorities and local people to call me if they see the mother so that I can reunite her with her daughter."

When he took the baby monkey back home, his wife Soma Stella, a mountaineer and a schoolteacher, and daughter Zita, 11, were overjoyed.

Stella, who has become especially fond of the baby, promptly named her Sundori, the Bengali for beautiful.

Singh said the baby was being given milk in a feeding bottle. She was alternating between drinking and taking naps.

"Whenever she woke up yesterday she whined for her mother," he said. "But such episodes were fewer today. Now she is crying not much after waking up but when she is hungry."

An officer of the forest department said although it was illegal to keep the baby monkey home, they were glad that Singh did so.

For, they did not have the infrastructure or expertise to take care of such a young animal, he said.