A cobra, which sneaked into a poultry farm to eat chickens, met with an unexpected reception – it got worshipped.

The workers, who spotted the venomous intruder, placed two bowls of milk near the cobra. They even spread ‘chunri’, a sacred cloth used in religious rituals, for the cobra to rest.

Hindus worship snakes, which they consider to be sacred. During an annual festival ‘Nagapanchami’, held every July, they offer milk and chunri to anthills, where they believe snakes nest.

A worker at a poultry farm near Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, India, had gone to feed the chickens on the night of October 29. He spotted an adult cobra and ran back to alert his colleagues.

The workers, decided that the cobra had come to bring good fortune to all. They made the religious offerings, later sat in a corner, and sang in praise of the cobra.

In a video of the incident, a few workers can be heard wondering if the owner of the farm would approve of their decision to worship the predator.

The cobra alarmed by the attention seems to be in daze. It assumes a defensive posture, refuses to touch milk or ‘chunri’ and takes an occasional swipe at the chicks, which try to get close to the intruder out of curiosity.

The cobra kept the workers awake the entire night.

The next morning, the owner of the poultry farm called a local snake rescuer Murari Sinha, who came and caught the cobra.

Sinha told reporters: “I am glad that workers protected the cobra, instead of killing it, due to their religious beliefs.”

He later released the snake in a nearby forest.