Man dies of snake bite in Khanapur, snake charmer tries to revive' him

BENGALURU: After a man died due to snake bite in Khanapur, his family made a bizarre attempt to bring him back to life! On the insistence of a snake charmer that he would bring him back to life, the body was covered by a huge amount of salt for one hour before the autopsy. When his magic failed even after an hour, the family allowed doctors to conduct the post-mortem.

The victim, Rudrappa Pijolli (24) of Avrolli, near Khanapur was allegedly bitten by a snake on Wednesday. The incident happened while he was covering his tractor with tarpaulin near his house. He did experience some pain soon after he got bitten, but he mistook it for some insect bite and ignored it.

After completing all his routine works, he had dinner and went to sleep. Around 2 am he woke up to an excruciating pain and began vomitting incessantly. His family rushed him to a hospital at Parishwad. He was declared dead by the doctors as soon as he was brought to hospital.

Shocked by the sudden death, his family approached a snake charmer from Beedi village, who assured them of doing a magical treatment to bring him back to life.

The snake charmer advised the family to cover the body with salt for some hours and assured them that he would come back to life. He was able to convince the family that the poison from the dead would come out if it was covered with salt and kept for sometime! On his insistence, the dead was brought out of the Khanapur mortuary where it was taken for post-mortem and covered with salt outside.

The crowd waited desperately for more than an hour only to find that the magic turn into a damp squib. The drama ended when the police personnel intervened and appealed to the family to hand over the body for post-mortem. The family then allowed doctors to conduct the post-mortem and later the body was taken for funeral in the afternoon.