Bijay Bhuyan, a farmer in Odisha’s Bhadrak district, has been living with his family in their ancestral home for years, but he had no inkling that he was sharing it with cobras.
To his utter surprise, he found 106 juvenile cobra snakes in the house in Paikasahi village on Friday. Efforts are on to retrieve more reptiles from an ant-hill that has come up adjacent to an earthen wall. Fellow villagers have thronged Mr. Bhuyan’s house to see the young reptiles.
“Family members had come across snakes around their house on several occasions,” said Seikh Mirza, a member of Snake Helpline, a voluntary forum that helps rescue snakes in distress. “Their religious belief did not allow them to dismantle the ant hill.”
“We have rescued 99 young cobras. Six snakes were found dead. As many as 19 eggs have also been spotted,” he said.