Two farmers fed up with bribery demands have dumped three sacks filled with snakes on the floor of a busy tax office in northern India.
The 40 or so snakes of different sizes and species, including at least four deadly cobras, sent clerks and villagers climbing on to tables and scurrying out of the door to escape the office in Basti, 185 miles south-east of Lucknow, according to local official Ramsukh Sharma.
"Snakes started climbing up the tables and chairs," he said. "There was total chaos. Hundreds of people gathered outside the room, some of them with sticks in their hands, shouting that the snakes should be killed."
No one was bitten or injured during the incident on Tuesday afternoon. Police and forest officials captured the snakes.
The farmers had been asking for tax records for their land in nearby Narharpur village, but officials withheld the files for weeks while allegedly demanding bribes.
Protests against seemingly endemic corruption in India are common. Scams have hit the headlines and badly damaged the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and his ailing administration. But it is the daily payment of small bribes to petty officials, policemen or even to medical staff that causes widespread resentment.
In the last year, a series of anti-corruption campaigns have mobilised widespread public support. In August, tens of thousands demonstrated in support of the creation of a new ombudsman with the power to investigate politicians and senior bureaucrats.
Some states in India have taken their own steps to fight corruption. One of the most innovative, in the poor north-eastern state of Bihar, has been the posting of online videos of personal statements by victims of bribes, in which they name corrupt officials. Officials believe the fear of exposure on websites such as YouTube will stop those accused of corruption offending in the future.
Authorities said they had verified and uploaded more than 1,000 such video clips, though it was not immediately possible to verify the claim. The state government said it had received more than 11,000 complaints from villagers, mostly related to housing schemes for the poor.
Bihar's rural development minister, Nitish Mishra, said: "We feel the fear of their names going public on the social networking site, resulting in social embarrassment, will obviously force the 'corrupt' officials not to seek bribes from the common villagers."
Based on the complaints, the minister said, the courts had jailed 72 corrupt officials.
Though supportive, ordinary people in Bihar say the campaign will have little impact on corruption. "It could be good publicity material for the government but will in fact not check corruption since only a little section of state population have access to internet facilities," said local resident Vijay Anand.
Mohan Guruswamy, a former senior finance ministry official and founder of the Centre for Policy Alternatives thinktank, said: "All over the country you are seeing a strong resistance to low-level corruption – for a driving licence, a railway ticket. This is basically extortion. It is not just a middle-class thing. It is happening further down. People are saying this is our right and we won't pay."
Though a series of high-profile arrests have been made in the so-called 2G mobile phone scandal – an alleged scam which costs the exchequer tens of billions of pounds – almost all those detained have now been released on bail.
Police said they were searching for the farmers who dumped the snakes, identified as Hukkul Khan and Ramkul Ram. Khan is also known locally as a snake charmer.
The 40 or so snakes of different sizes and species, including at least four deadly cobras, sent clerks and villagers climbing on to tables and scurrying out of the door to escape the office in Basti, 185 miles south-east of Lucknow, according to local official Ramsukh Sharma.
"Snakes started climbing up the tables and chairs," he said. "There was total chaos. Hundreds of people gathered outside the room, some of them with sticks in their hands, shouting that the snakes should be killed."
No one was bitten or injured during the incident on Tuesday afternoon. Police and forest officials captured the snakes.
The farmers had been asking for tax records for their land in nearby Narharpur village, but officials withheld the files for weeks while allegedly demanding bribes.
Protests against seemingly endemic corruption in India are common. Scams have hit the headlines and badly damaged the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and his ailing administration. But it is the daily payment of small bribes to petty officials, policemen or even to medical staff that causes widespread resentment.
In the last year, a series of anti-corruption campaigns have mobilised widespread public support. In August, tens of thousands demonstrated in support of the creation of a new ombudsman with the power to investigate politicians and senior bureaucrats.
Some states in India have taken their own steps to fight corruption. One of the most innovative, in the poor north-eastern state of Bihar, has been the posting of online videos of personal statements by victims of bribes, in which they name corrupt officials. Officials believe the fear of exposure on websites such as YouTube will stop those accused of corruption offending in the future.
Authorities said they had verified and uploaded more than 1,000 such video clips, though it was not immediately possible to verify the claim. The state government said it had received more than 11,000 complaints from villagers, mostly related to housing schemes for the poor.
Bihar's rural development minister, Nitish Mishra, said: "We feel the fear of their names going public on the social networking site, resulting in social embarrassment, will obviously force the 'corrupt' officials not to seek bribes from the common villagers."
Based on the complaints, the minister said, the courts had jailed 72 corrupt officials.
Though supportive, ordinary people in Bihar say the campaign will have little impact on corruption. "It could be good publicity material for the government but will in fact not check corruption since only a little section of state population have access to internet facilities," said local resident Vijay Anand.
Mohan Guruswamy, a former senior finance ministry official and founder of the Centre for Policy Alternatives thinktank, said: "All over the country you are seeing a strong resistance to low-level corruption – for a driving licence, a railway ticket. This is basically extortion. It is not just a middle-class thing. It is happening further down. People are saying this is our right and we won't pay."
Though a series of high-profile arrests have been made in the so-called 2G mobile phone scandal – an alleged scam which costs the exchequer tens of billions of pounds – almost all those detained have now been released on bail.
Police said they were searching for the farmers who dumped the snakes, identified as Hukkul Khan and Ramkul Ram. Khan is also known locally as a snake charmer.
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