Bengaluru: It was some hate mail this Bescom employee received on Tuesday afternoon!
The 40-year-old electric supply company staffer got a shock when he opened a package, delivered by a courier boy, and found a live snake hissing at him. Equally poisonous was the letter accompanying the package, warning the clerk to stay away from a married woman staffer at his office, “or else…” The reaction of the second division clerk, Keith D’Silva, who works at the Bescom’s vigilance department in Shivananda Circle, was obvious… He dropped the “poisoned” courier box and scooted.
He returned only after the coiled serpent slithered out of the box, to see a lethal letter addressed to him. The anonymous writer had warned Keith to stay away from the woman staffer at his office.
Keith filed a criminal intimidation case with the High Grounds police, who suspect that the deadly package was sent by a jealous husband of one of Keith’s women colleagues.
The police now face a problem investigating the case as they don’t have the material evidence, the snake. They are left with only the anonymous letter and the opened courier packet which may be of little or no help. But Keith has taken a few photographs of the curled up snake inside the box, on his mobile phone. The police have taken a list of women colleagues Keith was close to, and have started investigation.
Explaining the legal hurdle before the police, a lawyer said, “If this case has to go for conviction, then it should be a watertight one and the police have to produce the snake at the court at any cost!”
