By IANS,
Lucknow: A snake-charmer let loose a number of snakes in a government office of a small Uttar Pradesh town to shake up government officials who would not respond to repeated requests for allotment of a small piece of land to him to set up a serpentariam.
The incident was reported from Haraiya town of Basti district, about 200 km from here, Tuesday .
“A snake-charmer identified as Hakkul had applied for allotment of a plot of land on the outskirts of the town to run a serpentariam; but in the absence of any provision for allotment of land for such a business, we could not give any reply to him,” Subhash Mani Tripathi, the local Tehsildar (head of the local land revenue administration)
told IANS over telephone from Haraiya.
“Instead of seeking a written reply, which we would have issued, Hakkul created panic in our offices by letting loose a bunch of snakes all over the office,” he said.
“Employees as well as the public went running for their lives,” he added.
Hakkul, however told local mediapersons, “I am a conservationist of snakes and have been seeking the government’s help to provide me a place where I could create a serpentariam for them. I wrote to the President of India from whom I got a letter of recommendation for the district magistrate who promised to allot a small plot of government land free of cost for the purpose.”
He went on to add, “However, two years have passed since then and the local administration has simply been dilly-dallying on the issue because I refused to bribe them; after having waited patiently for so long, I had no option but to leave all my snakes in that very office.”
State laws have provision for free allotment of government land to poor to earn their livelihood.
According to the police, “nearly three dozen snakes have been captured so far and we have engaged local snake-charmers to look for any more in or around the land revenue office.”