Snakes in apartment raises false alarm in Hyderabad

Udumula Sudhakar Reddy

Fearing a situation like a horror movie ‘snakes on a plan’ locals at 

Kundanbagh raised a false alarm. After they complained to anti poaching squad of state forest department the sleuths took a search order from higher officials and searched the house thinking it as poachers den on Monday.Forester find nothing and the flat at Kundnabagh turned out to be that of one Mr. Varun a techie and a volunteer of Friends of Snakes Society. Wild life officials has cautioned the member not to keep the rescued snakes in residential locality and shift them immediately to rescue shelter.Mr Avinash Viswanathan Joint Secretary of Friends of Snakes Society says ,”Apartment residents or neighbours have seen Varun carrying the rescued snakes during nights. They complained to the forest officials telling that he is selling venom. The fact is that he is not involved in any such act. As it was late night as it is difficult to shift the snake to Sainikpuri shelter he kept them at his flat for one or two times previously. It was a false alarm. We also advised our member to shift the rescued snakes immediately to our shelter at Sainikpuri,”Chief Wild Life Warden Mr A V Joseph told Friends of Snakes Society not to take keep in residential localities. “When we went on some work to Aranya Bhavan we were informed about this precautionary measure. Our rescue home at a time can host ten different species of snakes and we observe them and release them into wild,”The society was also asked to submit regular reports on rescued snakes to the wild life wing. The government is yet to act on the application of the society to give some land for setting up a big shelter for snakes.There are several volunteers who are engineers, students and techies working in IT companies i the society. The calls that wild life control room receive are diverted to the society which attends them promptly. The society was formed by Mr RajKumar who died of cerebral malaria.