A young Indian girl sits on a bed in a hospital in this image taken from video in Bahraich northern India Thursday April 6, 2017. Indian police are reviewing reports of missing children from recent years... (Associated Press) 
 
 A young Indian girl sits on a bed in a hospital in this image taken from video in Bahraich northern India Thursday April 6, 2017. Indian police are reviewing reports of missing children from recent years to try to identify the girl who was found in a forest with a group of monkeys. The girl, believed... (Associated Press) 
 
 LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Indian police are reviewing reports of missing children to try to identify a girl who was found living in a forest with a group of monkeys. 
 
 The girl, believed to be 10 to 12 years old, was unable to speak, was wearing no clothes and was emaciated when she discovered in January and taken to a hospital in Bahraich, a town in Uttar Pradesh state in northern India. 
 
 She behaved like an animal, running on her arms and legs and eating food off the floor with her mouth, said D.K. Singh, chief medical superintendent of the government-run hospital. 
 
 After treatment, she has begun walking normally and eating with her hands. 
 
 "She is still not able to speak, but understands whatever you tell her and even smiles," Singh said. 
 
 Some woodcutters spotted the girl roaming with monkeys, police officer Dinesh Tripathi told The Associated Press on Thursday. They alerted police. 
 
 "They said the girl was naked and was very comfortable in the company of monkeys. When they tried to rescue the girl, they were chased away by the monkeys," the officer said. 
 
 She was rescued later by a police officer in the Katarniya Ghat forest range. "When he called the girl, the monkeys attacked him but he was able to rescue the girl. He sped away with her in his police car while the monkeys gave chase," Tripathi said. 
 
 He said police are trying to determine how the girl got into the forest and who her parents are. 
 
 She will be sent to a home for juveniles until she is identified, Singh said. ||||| Image caption The condition of the little girl, who reportedly struggles to communicate, is said to be improving 
 
 Police in northern India are searching lists of missing children to try to identify a girl believed to have been living with monkeys. 
 
 The little girl, aged between eight and 10, was found a few weeks ago in a forest in Uttar Pradesh. 
 
 Doctors said she could not communicate and displayed "monkey-like" traits. 
 
 A senior police official told BBC Hindi she had been playing with a pack of monkeys and imitating their behaviour when police went to rescue her. 
 
 The little girl was spotted by villagers in the Katarniaghat wildlife sanctuary, on the Indian border with Nepal. 
 
 The police official, Suresh Yadav, said the monkeys attacked his squad when they arrived to take her away. 
 
 Doctors said she was malnourished when she was brought in, with long hair and nails, and wounds on her body. 
 
 She was also unable to communicate but would screech and initially walked on all fours. 
 
 Her condition is said to be much better now, however, and in the long term she is expected to be handed over to child welfare agencies and other medical specialists to slowly reintroduce her to the world. 
 
 The hospital's chief medical officer, DK Singh, told BBC Hindi that although she was still in hospital, she would be transferred to the Lucknow Medical College once she had been given a clean bill of health so that she could get better medical care. 
 
 Local District Magistrate Ajaydeep Singh has also visited the girl in hospital and has named her "Forest Durga", a reference to a Hindu warrior goddess. 
 
 Many in India are comparing the little girl to Mowgli, the character from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book who was raised by wolves. It is not clear, however, how long the little girl has been living in the forest. ||||| Lucknow: A ten-year-old girl, now known as the ‘Mowgli girl’, has been brought to a hospital in Bahraich district after she was found living in the Katraniaghat forest area in the company of monkeys. The girl, who has apparently been brought up by monkeys, does not speak or behave like humans. 
 
 The girl was first spotted two months ago by some villagers who had gone to collect firewood in the forest. The girl, without any clothes, was seen scampering around with a group of monkeys. When a villager tried to get close to the girl, the monkeys surrounded him and forced him to beat a retreat. 
 
 The villager returned and informed the local people but each time the locals went to rescue the girl, who was apparently injured, the monkeys would attack them. Gradually the number of monkeys guarding the girl also increased. 
 
 A police team also ventured into the jungle but could not find the girl. Later, a team of UP 100 service was passing through the forest area when they spotted the girl. 
 
 The cops managed to pick up the girl and put her into the car and brought her to the primary health centre. The girl was reportedly semi-conscious and she was then shifted to the district hospital. 
 
 “We are not allowing visitors because the girl reacts violently if she sees someone. She growls like a monkey and tries to claw them. She has become familiar with a doctor and some nurses. She refuses to eat in a plate and spreads the food on the bed or the floor before she eats it,” said Dr D.K. Singh, CMS in the district hospital. 
 
 The girl, who had long tangled hair and long unkempt nails when she was rescued, is gradually improving. Her hair has been washed and cut and her nails have been clipped. 
 
 The wounds on her body are healing and her behavior is also slowly changing. She now walks on two feet, but eats directly from her mouth and cannot speak. Dr Singh said that it is not known how long the girl has been living in the jungle and the police are trying to see if she is in the missing persons’ list. 
 
 The local people feel that she may have been abandoned by her parents because she is a girl child. “Her behavior shows that she has spent several years in the jungle in the care of monkeys,” he added. 
 
 Officials in Lucknow who were unaware of the ‘Mowgli girl’ till now, are now preparing to put her in a special medical facility when she can be treated psychologically be a team of medical experts. However, this will take some time before she is removed from the hospital in Bahraich.
– Unbelievable as it may sound, authorities in northern India say they've rescued a young girl who appears to have been living with monkeys. Villagers first spotted the naked child looking "very comfortable in the company of monkeys" in January in the Katarniya Ghat forest range, a police officer tells the AP. They tried to approach but the monkeys chased them away, reports the Deccan Chronicle. Police were later able to seize the girl, though monkeys also chased an officer as he "sped away with her in his police car," the officer says. The "highly aggressive" girl was then taken to a hospital in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, where doctors say she initially walked on all fours, ate off the floor with her mouth, and ran from humans, per the Telegraph. She's described as being wound-covered, with long hair and nails. She is now walking upright, eating with her hands, and responding to humans, authorities say. She doesn't appear to speak any language (the Telegraph says she makes only "unintelligible muttering[s]"), but is warming up to her doctors and nurses—a possible sign that she retains memories of living with humans, a doctor says. A psychological assessment also indicates she likely had human contact before her time with monkeys, according to doctors. Though media outlets are calling the child Mowgli in a nod to Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, doctors have given her the name of Durga, after the Hindu warrior goddess. Doctors believe she is 8 to 12 years old. Officials say they're reviewing missing child cases in the hope of identifying the girl, per the BBC. (Kipling admitted something about his book in this 1895 letter.)