On Saturday, September 20, 47-year-old constable Santosh Chaudhary, stationed at Indore’s First Battalion, lost his life. That afternoon, his officers called to inform him that a snake was present in the battalion’s stable. He had previously caught snakes before. Upon receiving the information, he reached the stable where a snake was hiding in a window. Confidently, he grabbed the snake with his bare hands. During this, the snake bit his finger.
Chaudhary tried to shake his hand to free his finger from the snake’s mouth. When that didn’t work, he used his own mouth to pull the snake off his finger. All of this was being recorded on camera by his colleagues. After catching the snake from the window of that room, he came out into the open and began posing with the snake in front of the camera. But soon after, he felt anxious. Still holding the snake, he ran but stumbled and fell. He was rushed to Indore’s MY Hospital, but could not be saved.
The key aspects of this incident are the careless handling of the snake and the subsequent video making. This is not the first incident where snake catchers have lost their lives due to their obsession with making videos.
Captured on Camera
Like Chaudhary, another snake bite captured on camera was that of Deepak Mahawar (42) from Raghogadh in Guna district. He was popular in his area for catching snakes . On July 14, he was called to catch a snake in Barbatpura village, 27 kilometers from Raghogadh. He caught the snake, and then received information that his son’s school had ended. He reached the school with a cobra hanging around his neck. When some people saw him like this, they took out their phones and started making videos. In the video, he can be seen snapping his fingers in front of the cobra hanging around his neck while looking at the camera.
After making the reel, when Mahawar was returning with his son, the snake bit his hand. With the help of a companion, he reached the hospital. After treatment, he began feeling better and was discharged to go home. But at midnight, his condition deteriorated again, and he was declared dead upon reaching the hospital.
India’s Hidden Snake Bite Crisis
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 1 million snake bite cases occur in India annually, resulting in 58,000 deaths. Additionally, nearly four times more people suffer serious disabilities from snake bites. In total, 81,000 to 138,000 people die worldwide from snake bites each year—nearly half of these deaths occur in India.
According to an action plan created by the Indian government to reduce snake bite deaths, approximately 3 to 4 million snake bites occur in the country annually, causing around 50,000 deaths. Only a small fraction of snake bite victims in various countries report to clinics and hospitals, and the actual number of snake bites is severely underreported. According to the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI) report (2016-2020), the average number of snake bite cases in India is approximately 300,000, with about 2,000 deaths caused by snake bites.
A study reveals that Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Odisha have the highest number of snake bite cases and deaths. According to a study of data from 2020 to 2022, Madhya Pradesh recorded 5,779 snake bite cases in these three years. However, the government does not maintain separate statistics for deaths of snake catchers at central and state levels.
Heroes Without Help
Due to myths and fears surrounding snakes, people either kill snakes or call a sarp mitra (snake catcher) to catch them. Dinesh Gurjar, Head Constable at Rajgarh Women’s Police Station, spent his childhood in a mud house. There, he also saw snake catchers. Gurjar explains that later, after taking initiation mantras from a religious guru Veni Prasad, he started catching snakes in 1984.
While being stationed at various places in his job, he catches snakes for free from officers’ bungalows, government offices, and common people’s homes. For this, he has been honored on Independence Day and Republic Day. However, Gurjar never received any training for this. He uses wood instead of professional sticks for catching snakes.
Like Gurjar, Rambabau Bhandari, temporarily stationed as a driver in the forest department in the Narsinghgarh forest area, also works as a snake catcher. Speaking to Ground Report, Bhandari says, “I have been catching snakes for the past 6 years so that people don’t kill them.” However, Bhandari has not received any training in snake catching. He learned this work as a hobby by watching YouTube. But the forest department has provided him with a stick. He says,
I catch snakes safely with this stick and release them in the forest. So far, I have caught about 1,500 venomous creatures, but none have bitten me yet.
But the story of 28-year-old Govind Verma from Byawara is not so straightforward. Verma has been working as a snake catcher for 6 years. In August this year, Verma was catching snakes in Chamari village. After successfully catching the snake, people asked him to show tricks. While he was doing so, the snake bit his arm. He had to be admitted to Byawara Civil Hospital in critical condition, from where he was referred to Rajgarh District Hospital.
When Verma reached the hospital, he was having difficulty seeing, speaking, and breathing. Dr. Sudhir Kalawat, MD Medicine at the district hospital who treated him, says, “Generally, 10 ASV injections are given in snake bite cases, but his condition was very serious, so 30 ASV injections were administered.”
A Pattern of Fatal Obsession
Herpetologist Vivek Sharma, who has been working for snake conservation for the past 16 years, says that the trend of performing stunts with snakes is not new. He has been seeing this since the Orkut era. “Before Instagram, such stunt videos were popular on Facebook.” He explains the socio-economic reason, saying that most such people come from lower class or lower middle class backgrounds, and social media seems to offer them the easiest way to gain fame. He angrily adds that such careless people don’t even think about their families. He gives the example of Mahawar from Guna, saying that after his death, his children have become orphaned, and their future life will be comparatively difficult.
Snake catcher Lakshminarayan Mewade’s wife, Lakshmi Mewade, is stationed as an Anganwadi assistant in Ward No. 2. She and her children absolutely dislike Mewade’s work. Even after several arguments, he doesn’t listen to his wife. Lakshmi explains that once, while doing this work at a doctor’s place, a snake bit her husband, but the doctor kept him there for three days without informing family members, and they only learned about the incident after he returned home.
Sharma also operates a digital platform called Snake Hub, where anyone can get information about snakes found in their vicinity. He says that if people know about these snakes, their conservation can be possible. He also says that the government should create such a platform where people can contact trained snake rescuers in their vicinity. Additionally, he advocates for strict action against people who perform stunts with snakes.
Policy on Paper Only?
To halve snake bite deaths in the country by 2030, the central government launched a National Action Plan in March 2024. According to the action plan, the forest department should create special rescue teams to rescue snakes from human settlements. Along with this, training local snake ‘handlers’ has also been suggested. This plan specifically advises avoiding snake displays after catching them. Under the Wildlife Protection Act, displaying snakes, showing tricks, or causing harm is a crime. But all these measures become mere paperwork in the face of social media fever. In such cases, the results are so dangerous that people like Santosh Chaudhary have to pay the price with their lives.
Support us to keep independent environmental journalism alive in India.
Keep Reading
Small Wild Cats in Big Trouble: India’s First National Report Released
After Tragedy, Families Face Delays in Tiger Attack Compensation
Stay connected with Ground Report for underreported environmental stories.
Follow us onX, Instagram, and Facebook; share your thoughts at greport2018@gmail.com; subscribe to our weekly newsletter for deep dives from the margins; join our WhatsApp community for real-time updates; and catch our video reports on YouTube.
Your support amplifies voices too often overlooked, thank you for being part of the movement.
