Wildlife officials in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, cut open a pipe to free a cobra that had become stuck inside.

Locals had called the Animal Rescue Society after finding the poisonous snake in an abandoned pipe.

Akash Jadhav and his team arrived and began prodding the snake in an attempt to lure it out.

The rescuers then carefully started breaking the pipe around the snake's body.

After 30 minutes the cobra was eventually removed from the pipe and put into a bag before being released into the wild.

Jadhav said: "There was dirt inside the pipe and that seemed to have trapped the cobra making it almost immobile. As it was just stressed and not injured, we could send it back to the forest.”

This footage was filmed in April 2020.

A few Indian villagers saw a cobra entering an abandoned pipe. Fearful of the poisonous snake, they blocked the pipe at both the ends and called Animal Rescue Society for help.

Akash Jadhav went with his team to the village near Ahmednagar in western India to rescue the snake. He found that the cobra was so badly trapped it was unable to come out.

He tried to prod it with a snake stick and tapped the pipe a few times. The aggressive snake would hiss in response but stayed put inside.

Akash took a cutting plier and started breaking up the plastic pipe. He cut the pipe around the snake’s body carefully avoiding coming in contact with its face. After 30 minutes he managed to break open the pipe and free the cobra which immediately tried to strike him angrily.

But Akash caught the snake safely and put it in a bag before releasing it back in the wild.

Akash said: “There was dirt inside the pipe and that seemed to have trapped the cobra making it almost immobile. As it was just stressed and not injured, we could send it back to the forest.”