Actress Shruti Ulfat arrested for illegally posing with a rare species Cobra

Bollywood actress Shruti Ulfat of ‘Raaz’ fame has landed herself in some serious trouble. She, along with three teammates of her TV show ‘Nagarjun – Ek Yodha’, have been arrested by Mumbai police after illegally posed with a Cobra and posted a video of the same on Instagram.

Ulfat shot for an episode that required her to shoot with a Cobra. However, she could not resist the urge of taking it to Instagram as well! The video caught the attention of PAWS (Plants and Animals Welfare Society). Sunish Kunj, on behalf of the organisation, brought it to the notice of Forest Department. Nitin Solanki, Utkarsh Bali and Pearl Puri along with Shruti herself were arrested for violating the Wildlife Acts.

“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 traumatising for the snake,” Kunj said. (Also Read: Kareena Kapoor Khan’s income tax account hacker arrested in Mumbai)

Watch the video below!

“Shruti Ulfat might hav done it with no intentions 2 harm d cobra, best 2 ask her 2 work 4 snake conservation,” suggsts an activist @dna pic.twitter.com/SHRxu1jmLw

— Virat A Singh (@singhvirat246) February 8, 2017

Looks like this is not the first time the team used a real snake. Last year, RAWW, another organisation for protection of animal an environment acts, accompanied the Forest Department for investigation on the show’s sets as they were suspected to be making illegal usage of wildlife for the sake of their show.

“Actress Shruti Ulfat and three others from Nagarjuna daily soap booked by Mumbai Range of Thane Territorial wing of the forest department for using Spectacled Cobra, protected species under Wildlife Protection Act, Schedule 2. They were produced in court yesterday and court gave forest department their custody for a day to know and find the people who supplied snake to them. They will be produced in court again today. When I had assisted the Anti Poaching Unit of the Forest Department for primary investigations at the Film City in October last year the actress made us wait for an hour with her rude staff which did not cooperate and all of them had misled the forest department stating that it was VFX /Graphics and not a real snake. However forensic reports in January this year revealed that the snake was real and the responsible people have started facing the heat. Posing for entertainment with a protected species which is one of the top venomous snakes of the country is unethical, illegal and misleading,” Pawan Sharma, founder of RAWW wrote on Facebook.

Ranjini Maitra

Journalist. Writer. Reader. Enthu cutlet. Mood-swing machine. Day dreamer. Sandwiched between ‘live life fully’ and ‘lose some weight’. Mantra of life: Love and love more.