Ganesh brought home a cobra in a plastic jar and set the venomous reptile loose inside the room where his wife and toddler daughter were sleeping.
Odisha Viral News: A woman and her two-year-old daughter died after being bitten by a poisonous snake, allegedly released in the room by the victim’s husband following a dispute between the couple. According to officials, the incident took place a month-and-half ago in Adheigaon village of Odisha’s Ganjam district, however, the accused was arrested on Thursday.
As per the police, the accused, identified as 25-year-old K Ganesh Patra was involved in a marital tiff with his wife, K Basanti Patra (23). The couple were married in 2020 and had a two-year-old daughter named Debasmita.
On October 6, Ganesh brought home a cobra in a plastic jar and set the venomous reptile loose inside the room where his wife and toddler daughter were sleeping. The next morning, the mother-daughter duo were found dead due to snake bites, while the accused slept in another room, said a senior official.
Ganesh had procured fraudulently the poisonous reptile from a snake charmer by telling him that he intended to use the snake for some religious ritual, the officer said, adding that the police had initially registered a case of unnatural death in this connection.
However, the insidious murder plot was uncovered when the accused was questioned by the cops following a complaint by his father-in-law wherein he accused Ganesh of murder, Ganjam Superintendent of Police Jagmohan Meena told news agency PTI.
“The accused was arrested a month after the incident as there was some delay in gathering evidence against him. During interrogation, he initially denied the allegation and later claimed that the snake might have entered the room on its own but eventually confessed to committing the crime,” the SP said, adding further investigation is underway.
The Indian cobra is a highly poisonous snake whose venom contains a powerful post-synaptic neurotoxin and cardiotoxin which acts on the synaptic gaps of the nerves, thereby paralyzing muscles and causing death due to respiratory failure or cardiac arrest if an antidote is not administered within a short span of time.
(With PTI inputs)