Forest officials on Wednesday detained a man and rescued 13 poisonous snakes from his possession at Satasankha in Puri district. The snakes found in a bag are the species figuring in the scheduled list of Wildlife Act (conserved animals). It was suspected that an inter-State racket was working behind the snake smuggling.
Acting on a tipoff, Balipatna Forest Range officials raided a place and rescued the reptiles from one Pahali.
“We rescued the snakes and interrogating the accused,” said Balipatna Ranger RN Mohapatra. It was found that all the teeth of the snakes were broken. later the reptiles were release in forests.
It was suspected that Pahali used to sell snakes to smugglers as the venom of the snakes is very costly. Snake venom is used in rave parties by junkies to get a high in metro cities. They inject the snake venom, in a dilute form, in the body. A single shot of snake venom costs `4,000, according to sources.