Two held with 500 ml of cobra venom,boa and python – on a bus

Raiding Officer (PFA) Saurabh Gupta said,“It looks as if the consignment was brought to Delhi by air since the box had a flight tag attached to it. The box had a label ‘XRAY and physically checked’ stuck on it”.

The bus,police said,was headed towards Meerut. Gupta said,“According to our information,the snakes and the venom were being taken to Meerut and Nepal. It is possible that the venom was part of a larger consignment.”

Police said venom smuggling was being carried out as part of a well-organised racket in Delhi and the NCR with an increase in demand for the venom as a party drug.

According to animal welfare activists,the cobra venom is dried and processed and then converted into powder.

“It is consumed after dissolving it in liquor. About ten grams of powdered venom is dissolved in 100 litres of alcohol,” Gupta said.

This is the fourth recovery since November last year. Two back-to-back seizures of snake poison were made in November and December last year,followed by the third seizure a day before Valentine’s Day this year.