When two businessmen from Tiruppur were driving down to Madurai for a wedding on Thursday, they didn’t know that inside their BMW, the most bizarre and creepy story would unfold. The luxury car ran over a snake on the road – and almost like the plot of a Tamil movie, the snake came back from the dead to haunt them! Well, not really, but the truth wasn’t too different.
While the people in the car assumed that the snake was dead and decided to drive on, they saw the snake inside the car minutes later. Scared and confused, the men got down and called the fire services. But the firemen searched the car and found nothing. When the businessmen then called a BMW service centre, they were reportedly told that the car was so safe that “not even an ant could enter.”
However, the snake made yet another appearance soon after they started driving again. And this time, the men decided to take the car to the BMW service centre instead of taking any risks. At the service centre, the staff decided to call in a professional snake handler for the job – but allegedly only after they tried to beat the snake out.
TNM has accessed visuals of the snake rescue, that show a blue BMW car with its front tyres removed, its hood up, and its front bumper pulled apart. At the beginning of the video, the snake handler can be seek holding the snake’s tail in his left hand, as he rebukes the curious onlookers, telling them to stop disturbing him as they take videos on their phone. He then tries to bring the snake out, but it’s stuck under the bumper.
He then motions to a staffer at the service centre to help him pull the bumper apart further, as he tries to hold on to the snake. The snake slips out of his hand and back into the car. After trying to spot it for a few more seconds, they pull out the bumper altogether, and the snake handler then carefully brings the snake out from its hiding spot.
A six-foot cobra is suddenly on the floor, and the handler then professionally tries to calm the reptile.
Speaking to TNM, Sanjai, the conservationist who is seen skillfully handling the cobra, is disappointed that his services were required only because the snake could not be removed by beating it up. He even reminded the employees that it is an offence, he says.
“The employees hit the snake. So its bones were broken and it went inside the bumper because it was in pain. So they pumped air into it. The snake started hissing. This confirmed that the snake was there. So the frontage of the car was removed. Then the cobra raised its hood and stood on the bumper. We safely removed it and released it into the wild after informing the authorities, since it is venomous,” he explains.
Sanjai is part of the Saves Our Snakes organisation in Coimbatore that works for the conservation of reptiles.
“I am an artist by profession. I rode as fast as I could from Vellalur to Elambur. For me, all snakes and people in Coimbatore should be saved,” he adds passionately.
The people at the BMW service centre, meanwhile, have been tight-lipped. “The snake was in the wheel under the chassis. It went to the bottom of the wheel. The conservationist came and removed it,” a person at the service centre said.
The businessmen who were in the car did not wish to speak to the media.