A python, not passengers, kept the railway staff busy at Suisa station under Ranchi railway division in the intervening night of Sunday and Monday.

The jawans of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), who were on duty, rushed to the station master’s office when they heard a frightening cry from railway employee Pintu Kumar who was on duty there.

“It was hardly 10 minutes past midnight when Pintu shouted saap saap at the top of his voice and our people rushed there immediately to find a python lying near the station master’s chair,” RPF inspector Lal Babu Yadav told over the phone from Suisa, in Bengal’s Purulia district, adding the station was almost deserted as train services remained suspended.

“The snake was at least 5-feet long but was moving very slowly, possibly because it had eaten something as was apparent from its bulging belly,” he further said, adding all were scared to face it as the snake started moving within the room.

All the RPF members left their barrack and went to the station but could not drive away the snake. “At last our cooks, Hemraj Sharma and Bir Bahadur Rai, mustered courage and faced the python with two bamboo poles,” the inspector said.

After trying for some time, they finally managed to lift the snake with help of the poles and carried it to nearby waiting hall, Yadav further said.

They then put the python in an empty garbage bin made of steel and covered it with a heavy iron plate to secure it could not escape.

“We had also informed the nearest forest range office at Baghmundi,” the RPF inspector informed, adding two employees from that office came on Monday morning.

They took it with them, he further said, adding they would possibly release it in the forests.

“We have no idea,” inspector Yadav said when asked how could a python reach the stationmaster’s office around midnight.