Gurugram woman finds five-foot-long python in her kitchen

According to forest department officials, this is the 15th Indian Rock Python to be rescued in the city this year. Apart from the city, pythons have been sighted and rescued from Sohna Dhani, Ghata, Gadoli Khurd and Baliyawas villages.

Thirty-five-year-old Suman Gautam, who was puttering in her kitchen to make tea early on Wednesday morning, was jolted out of her reverie when spotted a five-foot-long, male, Indian Rock Python coiled up in her kitchen. The Sheetla Colony resident had picked up the gas lighter to ignite the burner, when she spotted something moving under it. It took Suman under 10 minutes to alert her husband and the entire neighbourhood of the find.

It took the wildlife rescue team a whole hour to capture the four-year-old python. Another cobra was rescued from a nearby village on Wednesday afternoon. (Yogendra Kumar/HT PHOTO)

“I received a call around 8.40 am from my wife and her voice was trembling with fear; she was sobbing. She said there was a big snake in the kitchen. I immediately called the wildlife helpline number and told them to reach my house. It was the first time that she had seen the reptile in life,” Satish Kumar Gautam, an automobile executive who works in Bhiwani, said.

Even as the wildlife rescue team and local wildlife enthusiast Anil Gandas took an hour to reach the spot, rescuing the python, who by now had become the centre of attention of the entire neighbourhood, took a little longer.

“I was in Faridabad when I received the call. When I reached the house, I first had asked all the residents who had gathered there to stay calm and not to disturb the reptile, which was hiding in a utensil rack,” Gandas said. Residents of Block-A, Sheetla Colony, who were at the Gautam residence said the reptile had become restless and was trying to escape.

“This is the first time a python was found inside a house in the city,” Gandas said.

Curiosity aside, there has been a sea change in the attitude of Gurugram residents towards wild animals that stray into human settlements and need rescuing, said Vinod Kumar, the additional principal chief conservator of forests, Gurugram.

“People become more aware and consider calling the wildlife rescue team instead of trying to deal with the matter themselves, or worse, resorting to killing the animals,” Kumar said, adding that the rain coaxes the snakes out of the earth with vermin like rats and mice that live near human settlements, and are food.

Anil Gandaas, a social animal activist rescues a five-foot-long male Indian Rock Python from a house in Sheetla Enclave near Sector 5 in Gurugram.

As a testimony to people’s changed attitude, Kumar shared that the Gurugram wildlife department has received to 698 calls since January 1, this year. however, there are times, when panic does get the better of people. Like in Palam Vihar where residents killed a cobra in June.

Meanwhile, another five-foot-long spectacled cobra, weighing 2.5kg, was rescued from Gadoli Khurd village, approximately six kilometers from Gurugram. The snake was spotted near the government senior secondary school wall in the afternoon.

Both the rescued reptiles were released in forest near Manesar on Wednesday evening.