Story By: Lee Bullen,Sub Editor: Joseph Golder,Agency: Asia Wire Report

Video Credit: AsiaWire/Tik Tok

These four farm workers have been arrested after posting a video showing them proudly showing off a protected rat snake on TikTok that they said they had killed and burned.

The bungling farm workers then reportedly answered questions for their followers which in turn revealed their location to the cops who could then swoop in and arrest them.

The four suspects, from Balasinor in the district of Mahisagar in India’s westernmost state of Gujarat, said they had no idea killing a rat snake, of the family Colubridae, was illegal when they were arrested on 8th March on the video sharing platform.

The Indian Forest Service has booked Jagdish Vaghela, Pravin Vaghela, Bharatsinh Vaghela and Vikram Vaghela under various sections of the country’s Wildlife Protection Act.

According to the forest service, the four farm workers saw the rat snake in a haystack and quickly caught it.

They then filmed themselves hitting the snake with a stick and dancing with it.

Forest officer Daud Kokani told local media: “They hit the snake with a wooden stick and stones which eventually killed it.”

They were caught when a netizen who saw their video asked where they were from in the comments section.

The suspects replied that they come from Balasinor and the netizen informed the forest authority about the video.

• 

• 

According to the police, they were able to find the workers with the help of local residents.

Kokani said: “They were not aware that killing a snake is crime. They just wanted to have fun so they hit the snake for the videos.”

The investigation is ongoing.

The ViralTab page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.