Aurangabad, July 14: Panic gripped a school in Maharashtra's Hingoli district after a total of 60 poisonous snakes were found in the single-room kitchen on Saturday. The snakes - all of them of the venomous Russell's Viper breed - were later caught and handed over to the forest department.

The incident was reported from a public school, run by the Hingoli zilla parishad, in Pangra Bokhare village, located in the Marathwada region. The remote rural area is located nearly 225-km away from Aurangabad.

One of the school's cook first spotted two snakes when he lifted the firewoods stored for cooking purpose. After more woods were lifted from the spot, he found dozens of snakes closely knit to each other.

After the teachers and students were informed, the village was gripped under a frenzy with youths approaching with stones and sticks to kill the reptiles.

School headmaster Triyambak Bhosle, however, did not allow the villagers to enter the kitchen and kill the snakes. Instead, the administration called a trained snake catcher, identified as Vicky Dalal, to rescue all of them.

After two strenuous hours, Dalal succeeded in catching all the 60 snakes from the school kitchen and safely putting them into cylindrical bottles.

The snakes were subsequently handed over to forest officer JD Kachwe, confirmed one of the school administrators, Bhimrao Bokhare.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 14, 2018 06:30 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).