Chasing a mouse, a striped keelback snake entered a home and got snared in glue trap, which had been laid to catch the rodent.

Both the prey and predator shared a common fate - they lay helplessly at the house of a TV journalist in east Indian city of Bhubaneswar.

The family was horrified to discover the unexpected catch on October 21st evening and called Snake Helpline, a local rescue agency.

The volunteers rushed to the spot and found the snake lying still after exhausting itself in a vain struggle to break free.

They removed it from the glue trap in a delicate operation lasting over an hour using oil and spirit. They then shifted the reptile to a clinic where it was treated for a day for minor injuries and then released in the wild.

Suvendu Malik of Snake Helpline said: “The snake was lucky as it was rescued in time. A few hours more it would not have made it.”

Striped keelback are non-venomous snakes, which live close to human habitats, surviving on small preys.