New Delhi: Here is a proverbial case of “Saanp bhi mar jaye aur lathi bhi na toote” (killing a snake without breaking the wooden weapon) with a twist. In this case, the snake is the weapon.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday denied bail to an accused in a case where a woman was killed after being bitten by a snake. A bench of Chief Justice NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli was hearing the bail plea of an accused who hails from Rajasthan. During the hearing, Justice Surya Kant said, “This is a new trend that people bring poisonous snakes from snake charmers and kill a person through snake bite. This is now becoming common in Rajasthan.”
Advocate Aditya Chaudhary, appearing for the accused Krishna Kumar, said, “There is no direct evidence against the accused”.
Krishna Kumar had allegedly gone to the snake charmer with the main accused and had bought a snake for Rs 10,000. Chaudhary argued that his client did not know why his friend was buying snakes or poison. He was told that it was needed for medicinal purposes.
The lawyer argued that Kumar did not even go to the woman’s house with the snake. He added that the accused is an engineering student and should be given bail for the sake of his future.
The incident dates back to 2019 when a woman, Subodh Devi, was killed by her daughter-in-law by getting her bitten by a snake in a village in the Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan. It was alleged that the daughter-in-law, Alpana, had an extramarital affair with Manish, a resident of Jaipur, while her husband was away from home serving in the Army. Things soured when Subodh Devi got to know of her daughter-in-law’s affair. Alpana then allegedly connived with Manish to have her mother-in-law killed with a snake bite.
