Rescued snake in Maharashtra sent back to Odisha on a plane

Amar Godambe is part of the animal trafficking ring

A new case has exposed the wildlife trade racket that deals in the supply of exotic species of snakes. The Maharashtra Forest Department has rescued a 10-foot-long king cobra that was smuggled from Odisha, after following a series of clues from a different crime. The perpetrator has been arrested, and the snake has been sent back to Odisha via flight, where it will be released in its natural habitat.

According to officials, on January 13, the Railway Police Force (RPF) at Ahmednagar railway station arrested Chandra Bhanu Rankamani Naik, a resident of Bargarh, Odisha, for illegally transporting snakes by Hatia Pune Superfast Express. The officials were shocked to discover that he was travelling with six live specimens of snakes and one green iguana. The RPF informed the Ahmednagar Forest Department and handed over the accused and the specimens, which included a red sand boa, slender coral, Günther's racer, common trinket, yellow spotted wolf snake, common wolf snake (partial albino) and one green iguana.

King cobra

"The preliminary offence report was filed by the forest department and the accused was later produced before the magistrate court and given 11 days of forest custody. During his interrogation and while checking his camera and laptop, a few names popped up. We were also surprised and shocked to know that there is a king cobra in Maharashtra, which is a non-native species to the state. The search for the snake begun and we called up the suspected people for questioning," said an official.

During the interrogation on January 18 , the four snake traffickers from Maharashtra, who were called in for questioning, confessed that they had brought a king cobra from Odisha, when they visited Chandra Bhanu in November. "In a snake swap, they took a Malabar Pit viper, hump-nosed pit viper and albino common krait and handed it over to Chandra Bhanu in exchange of the king cobra. The arrested accused include Avinash Shaha and Prashant aka Sopan Thorat from Sangamner, Akshay Ghodke from Barshi and Jagdish Rewatkar from Chandrapur. Two people were absconding, namely Amar Godambe and Altaf Shaikh, both from Pune," said an official.

After bringing the king cobra to Maharashtra, it was kept at Godambe's house for nearly two months. During this time, many people visited his house and freely handled the king cobra and clicked photos with it.

After Chandra Bhanu was arrested, Godambe sent the king cobra to Shaha at Sangamner. From there, Shaha and Thorat handed over the king cobra to Tanmay Kolate from Mumbai. "They told Tanmay that it's an exotic species called Malaysian king cobra and told him to sell it off to a potential buyer. He was promised a commission for this," says Aditya Patil from the NGO Wildlife Welfare Association (WWA). "However, Tanmay realised that it's an Indian species.

Tanmay was frightened, and he got in touch with me and our NGO, as we've been handling cases related to wildlife trafficking. We assured him nothing would happen to him, provided he handed over the snake to Ahmednagar forest office."

How was the snake taken care of?
The team of officials was guided by herpetologist Kedar Bhide, experts Ganesh Mehendale and Kiran Shelar, and Aditya Patil and his team from WWA.

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