A shopkeeper from northeastern India got a fright recently when he checked a mousetrap and found a deadly cobra stuck inside.

The reptile had apparently slithered inside the humane trap to eat a mouse or a rat but become too fat to squeeze back out through the bars.

The shopkeeper from Puri in the state of Odisha called a snake catcher who removed the aggressive reptile from the shop and later released it back into its natural habitat.

A resident of Puri district in eastern India brought a mouse trap to catch rodents at his shop on March 29. Instead, he found a cobra trapped the next morning.

Susant Kumar Behera, a volunteer of Snake Helpline, went to the shop to rescue the snake. When he opened the door of the mousetrap, the cobra came out hissing and tried to chase him away.

When that failed it quietly went back to its refuge inside the mouse trap. Behera opened the trap door again, which had shut on its own. As he waited patiently, the snake suddenly came out and tried to flee dodging him. Behera caught it easily and later released it in a far away natural habitat.

Subhendu Mallik, founder of Snake Helpline, said: "The cobra squeezed into the mouse trap to prey upon a rodent already trapped inside. However, after the meal its stomach bulged and it couldn't come out."