Five-year-old dies of snake bite

A five-year-old girl died of  snake bite at her house in MRS Palya on Nandidurga Road in the early hours of Friday.

The parents of victim Samanjatha  woke up as the girl started screaming and writhing in pain around 3.30 am. The parents saw her fingers bleeding and initially mistook it for a centipede or a rat bite. But they panicked as her skin turned blue. The girl was rushed to a nearby private hospital, but she started frothing on the way. She was declared brought dead on arrival. The doctors said the death was possibly caused by a snake bite.

The family members rushed back home and when searched, found the snake hiding in a corner of the house. After confirming that it was a cobra, they killed it and burnt it outside the house. Police said the snake may have crawled into the house from a drainage chamber in a vacant site near the house.

Abraham, uncle of Samanjatha told DH that she had started going to school only a few days ago. She was the eldest daughter of Sadananda, an office assistant and Salome, a domestic help.

Local corporator of Ramaswamy Palya, Netravathi,  visited the family members and told them that after a case of unnatural death was registered, she would arrange for the release of a compensation. “But the parents were against postmortem and fearing autopsy, they did not even lodge a complaint with the jurisdictional JC Nagar police and performed the last rites.” Abraham said.