Taking the serpentine route to earn a livelihood and grab some eyeballs on social media in the process can prove to be a slippery slope, as a self-proclaimed sarpa mitra (snake rescuer), who was tracked down and arrested by a forest department team found out. Snakes can indeed bite the very hand that feeds them and fatally, at that.
“Altaf Kalawant from Ichalkaranji in Kolhapur is a self-proclaimed sarpa mitra, who would catch snakes and keep them at his residence. He would pose with them and display them, organising photo sessions and performing stunts with them. During one such stunt with a snake, it tried to bite him and he flung it near a crowd that had gathered. A video of this incident went viral on social media,” said Yuvraj Patil, Range Forest Officer (RFO).
Patil said the forest department team then tracked down Kalawant and arrested him on Wednesday. An offence has been booked against him under the relevant sections of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
This is not the first time that these snake-rescuers or even commoners, have run afoul of the law for such reptilian stunts.
In February 2017, actor Shruti Ulfat was arrested along with a colleague and two production managers, for recording a video while handling a captured cobra.
In July 2019, sarpa mitra Vijay Chavan from Kavathe Mahankal in Sangli was arrested for capturing a cobra that had swallowed a rat snake (dhaman) and forcing it to vomit out its prey.
Sometimes, these stunts end badly, as it happened with sarpa mitra Somnath Mhatre in February 2017, when he tried to kiss its head and was rewarded with a fatal bite.
A senior forest official stressed the need to regulate and register those who claimed to be snake catchers, as some of them were also involved in illegal activities like trading of snakes and snake venom. Some species of snakes like red sand boa (mandul) command a premium in the grey market due to blind faith and superstition.
For instance, in 2016, Chakan Police in Pune arrested a sarpa mitra for allegedly supplying snakes to two people, who illegally sold their venom.
A formalised system, wherein such snake rescuers are trained and appointed to rescue snakes from residential areas and release the creatures into the wild is the need of the hour, the official stressed.
