A housewife named Fatema Begum (55) has died after being bitten by a cobra while offering prayers in Matlab Uttar, Chandpur.

The incident took place on the night of Friday, 5 September, at Baher Char, a remote char area of the upazila. Fatema was the wife of Ariful Miaji of Baher Char village in Mohanpur union.

Relatives said she was saying her Isha prayers as she did every day. As she finished and turned her head to the right for the salam and then to the left, a cobra bit her on the waist and slipped into a nearby bush. Family members took her by boat to Chandpur 250-bed General Hospital, where the doctor on duty declared her dead.

Local resident Muhammad Foyzullah said that when the news spread, villagers pulled the snake out of the bush and beat it to death.

About 10 to 12 days earlier, a cobra had been killed inside Fatema Begum's house. Residents complain that snakes have become more common in the remote char areas.

"We live in a remote char. There is no hospital or first-aid facility here. We had to take my wife to hospital by river with great difficulty. By then I had lost everything," said her husband, Ariful Miaji.

Md Robiul Haque, officer-in-charge of Matlab Uttar police station, said: "We have learned of the death from snakebite, but no one has filed a complaint with us."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.