6-ft-long snake rescued from ASI head office in Agra
Darpan News Desk IANS, 13 Aug, 2021 10:52 AM
Agra, Aug 13 (IANS) The Rapid Response Unit of the Wildlife SOS has rescued an Indian rat snake from the head office of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) located on the Mall Road here.
In another incident, two monitor lizards were rescued from the storeroom of a house in Raghuvir Nagar. All the reptiles were later released back into their natural habitat.
An emergency call on the Wildlife SOS 24-hour helpline number alerted its team about a large rat snake, which had fallen in an open water tank inside the ASI head office here on Thursday.
As soon as the incident was reported to the senior officials, they immediately contacted the Wildlife SOS, asking for their assistance.
A two-member rescue team from the wildlife conservation NGO rushed to the location and successfully extricated the distressed snake from the water tank.
Vasant Kumar Swarnkar, Superintending Archaeologist, ASI, Agra, said, "The incident was reported to us by the guard. Since the Wildlife SOS had rescued snakes and other wild animals from the premises before, we called them for help. We are grateful to their team for the swift response."
Kartick Satyanarayan, Co-founder & CEO, Wildlife SOS, said, "We are extremely grateful to the staff at the Archaeological Survey of India for alerting us. Timely intervention helped us save the rat snake. The rat snake is a non-venomous species and is popularly known as 'Dhaman' in northern India. It is often mistakenly believed to be venomous because of its similarity to cobra and for its large size."
Baiju Raj M.V, Director, Conservation Projects, Wildlife SOS, said, "The rat snake was kept under observation for a few hours before being released back into the wild."
The journalists body also sought issuance of guidelines on surveillance on Indian citizens and safeguarding them from electronic surveillance, spying and hacking.
In a written reply to an unstarred question in the Lower House, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai, said that three cases have been registered by the Delhi Police in connection with the violent attacks on students and some teachers on the JNU campus last year.
The 79-year-old Governor's actions "led to outrage" at the Cabinet meeting, presided over by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray with Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and ministers of all three allies - Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress - present.
Incessant rains last week coupled with huge volumes of water from the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) have led to flood-like situation in seven districts of West Bengal, leaving at least 8 dead and displacing over 3 lakh people from their homes in the last four days.
The government is implementing market information system where the prices of vegetables are collected through Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis and disseminated for its use by the farmers through Agmarknet portal, mobile applications etc. for better price realisation, he said.
