Fire and Rescue Services personnel catch a snake that entered the High Court premises after an ordeal. | Photo Credit: ma20snake more-in True to the Tamil saying that even an army of soldiers would turn jittery on spotting a snake, the reptile gave some tense moments not only to lawyers and litigants but also to the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel as well as local policemen on the Madras High Court Bench campus here on Wednesday. It was around noon that a snake was spotted at the gate before Mahatma Gandhi’s statue on the campus. Even as some of the passersby ran helter and skelter due to fear, the snake slithered under a dry culvert that had been constructed to ensure free flow of water to a waterbody situated on the court campus. Fortunately, Fire and Rescue Services Department personnel deployed on the campus sprung into action to catch the venomous reptile. It was not an easy task for them too since the snake took shelter under the culvert and refused to move despite the men flinging stones at it to make it move out. One of the firemen exhibited immense courage by entering into the culvert with a stick and scaring the snake to emerge out of the other end of the culvert. The moment the reptile was out, the fire personnel held it tight with two sticks and let it bite one of the sticks for long to make it spit the venom out. Expressing shock over the incident, a court staff said that the court campus spread over 100 acres was a haven for snakes which could be spotted frequently even near the judges’ bungalows situated behind the court buildings. “We had engaged the services of professional snake catchers too, yet the population of the reptiles does not seem to have come down,” he rued. No basic facilities The fire and rescue services personnel said they remain uncared for and denied even basic facilities, due to the absence of a concrete building for their use on the campus, despite being of immense help in such situations. The Public Works Department had not included a building for fire services personnel in the original building plan for the court and therefore they were made to stay under a makeshift asbestos roof. “Only recently, the State Government has allocated funds for construction of a building for us on the campus. We do not know how many more years would it take for that construction to get completed,” a fireman lamented.

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