Guwahati, April 19, 2020: A group of tribals was seen in a video with a 12-feet-long King Cobra that they killed for a feast in Arunachal Pradesh.
In the video, shared widely on social media, three men carrying the snake’s carcass were heard claiming that they had killed the reptile in the jungle.
They had made elaborate arrangements for the feast and laid banana leaves to slice and clean the meat.
One youth says in the video that they have no rice left in their granaries because of the lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“So we went to the jungle looking for something, and found this (the King Cobra),” one of the men said.
A case under the Wildlife Protection Act has been filed against them, officials said, adding the men are on the run.
The King Cobra is a protected reptile under the law and killing it is an offence that cannot be granted bail. Arunachal Pradesh is home to a large number of endangered snake species.
Researchers recently discovered a new species of a venomous snake and named it after JK Rowling’s fictional character Salazar Slytherin, co-founder of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The pit viper was discovered by a team of researchers in the thick evergreen forests of Pakke Tiger Reserve in July 2019 and has been named Trimeresurus Salazar, a Harry Potter character.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/coronavirus-no-rice-left-amid-lockdown-arunachal-tribals-kill-king-cobra-for-meal-2214599