In the stillness of night, Jhuma Sardar lay asleep in her village in West Bengal when a venomous krait snake bit her. The attack was silent and swift but the help was not. The 35-year-old mother never made it to treatment and died before sunrise, a victim not just of venom, but of a fractured healthcare system.

Jhuma’s story is common in Bengal’s remote districts, where snakebites claim hundreds of lives each year—yet many go unreported. While Government data records zero snakebite deaths RTI responses and hospital records tell a different story. In just one hospital in Canning, over 100 snakebite cases were documented in 2022 alone. Across South 24 Parganas, over 2,000 cases were found—yet only three deaths were officially recorded.

The crisis runs deeper than statistics. In villages surrounded by rivers and forests, patients often turn to quacks or arrive at hospitals too late for life-saving anti-venom. Misclassification of snakebite deaths as “poisoning” or “sudden death” further erases them from records. Behind every missing number is a life lost—and a family left without answers, justice, or acknowledgment.

Video Producer: Mayank Chawla
Video Editor/Animation: Rajbir Singh