“Snakes” are “saviours” of this police station in Kerala

In a forest-fringe police station in the high-range Idukki, they struck upon a unique idea to shield themselves from the monkey menace. The personnel use replicas of snakes around the Cumbummettu police station that is located on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border here to scare the troops away.

Idukki:  Police personnel are generally considered as the watchdogs of society. But, it is no exaggeration to say that snakes, that too rubber replicas of the real ones, have become saviours of the law enforcers in Kerala.

In a forest-fringe police station in the high-range Idukki, they struck upon a unique idea to shield themselves from the monkey menace. The personnel use replicas of snakes around the Cumbummettu police station that is located on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border here to scare the troops away.

This trick has been a success at least till now. The China-made snakes, which resemble the real reptiles, could be seen lying in various spots, including on the grille of the police station building, branches of the trees nearby and so on.

The police personnel experimented with the use of the replicas as per the advice of a local estate keeper who was doing the same thing to keep stray animals at bay.

Cumbummettu sub-inspector P K Lalbhai said no monkey has dared to come anywhere near the station, particularly, after seeing the rubber snakes. The troop mistakes them for the real ones!

“We were told that there won’t be any more monkey menace if the rubber snakes were tied in places where they usually come in large numbers. There has been no menace after that experiment,” he said.

Sunish, another policeman, said the monkeys have been posing several difficulties at the station for some years.

“They used to come as group, roam around the station premises and even destroy the vegetable garden in our compound. But, after fixing the rubber snakes, their arrival has decreased remarkably,”

He said they came to know about the trick of placing rubber snakes from a cardamom farmer in nearby Udumbanchola and did not waste time to experiment with them.