‘The tax office that really is a nest of vipers’Two farmers fed up with alleged bribery demands emptied three bags filled with snakes in a busy tax office in northern India, an official said.
The 40 or so snakes of different sizes and species — including at least four deadly cobras -sent clerks and villagers climbing atop tables and scurrying out the door to escape the office in Basti, about 186 miles southeast of Lucknow, said Uttar Pradesh state official Ramsukh Sharma.
‘Snakes started climbing up the tables and chairs,’ he said.
‘There was total chaos. Hundreds of people gathered outside the room, some of them with sticks in their hands, shouting that the snakes should be killed.’
No one was bitten or injured in the incident on Tuesday afternoon, and police and forest officials captured the snakes.
The farmers had been asking for tax records for their land in nearby Narharpur village, but tax officials withheld the files for weeks while allegedly demanding bribes.
Sharma said their method of protest was unacceptable.
Police are searching for the farmers, who were identified as Hukkul Khan and Ramkul Ram. Khan is known locally as a snake charmer. Protests against corruption in India is not uncommon and nor is bribery.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators protested in August to support the creation of a new watchdog which would have the power to investigate senior bureaucrats and politicians.
And some Indian states have been posting online videos to air the stories of victims of bribery, in which they name corrupt officials.
Over 1,000 such videos have been uploaded according to authorities, which they believe could help discourage those involved re- offending.
The development minister of northeastern state Bihar, Nitish Mishra, said: ‘We feel the fear of their names going public in social networking sites, resulting in social embarrassment, will obviously force the ‘corrupt’ officials not to seek bribes from the common villages’, the Guardian reported.
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