A brave woman in a sari caught a cobra with bare hands to help release it from a net.

The resident wearing traditional clothing was walking by a pond near her home with relatives when she spotted the 5ft (1.5 metres) snake stuck in strings in India on October 15.

Footage shows the good Samaritan holding the reptile in distress and fixing it on her lap so she could properly cut the trash with a pair of scissors.

She tucked its tail on her lap but the panicked cobra kept wriggling so she put it on the ground.

A schoolgirl watched behind her as she did the rescue operation on her own, carefully snipping the strings to free the animal.

The woman calmed the snake by talking to it while the other girls told her to handle it with care as it could bite her hand.

Eventually, the compassionate resident successfully set free the snake and bid it goodbye.

In India, cobras hold significant cultural importance, often associated with deities and featured in traditional practices like snake charming. However, despite their reverence in culture, snakebites from cobras result in thousands of deaths annually.

A sari is a traditional garment worn by women in India and several other South Asian countries. It is typically worn over a petticoat and can be styled in various ways. It is often paired with a blouse called a choli.