A video of Tv soap Naagarjuna‘s actress with a cobra in her hand is doing rounds on the internet and has landed her in trouble. It is being said that complaints have been lodged by several animal rights activists and the actress has been booked under Section 9, 39, 48 (a) and 51 of the Wildlife Protection Act.
Actress Shruti Ulfat, along with one of her co-actors and two of the production managers has been arrested by the forest department on Wednesday. The move was taken after the actress recorded a video with cobra in her hands, which is a protected species under Schedule II and violating the Wildlife Act.
And when the production team was questioned about the same, they kept misleading the forest department saying that it’s just special effects and not a live snake.
After the inquiry, the team admitted that they used a real cobra and the court immediately ordered one day of forest custody. In an interview with DNA, the Range Forest Officer Santosh Kank said:
We downloaded the video from social media and then sent it to the Kalina forensic lab to ascertain if the video was indeed special effects. However, on January 17, we received a report that stated that the snake was real and based on this we sent the actress a notice and filed a Primary Offence Report (POR) and asked her to be present for an inquiry.
Shruti Ulfat
(Courtesy: Twitter)
While Sunish Kunju of PAWS, who made the complaint to the forest officials said that such videos coming from TV personalities only promote capturing snakes, which is really harmful both for the animals and people. He further added:
If such acts are performed by television personalities it will only promote capturing snakes and making such videos. We also want the forest department to arrest the main culprit who provided the snake as it was not only extremely risky for people but also traumatizing for the snake.
Here’s a look at the videos which surfaced online:
Forest Dept say that production manager nd actress said this snake was special effect bt forensic tests cnfrmd it was real @dna pic.twitter.com/DIfosxGhZO
— Virat A Singh (@singhvirat246) February 8, 2017
Ths is d video that got Shruti Ulfat in trouble nd angered animal activists who complained 2 forest dept @PAWSMumbai @RAWW_TWEETS @dna pic.twitter.com/FBdAwfTXFU
— Virat A Singh (@singhvirat246) February 8, 2017
