Two animal rights activists, complainants in the snake venom case involving YouTuber Elvish Yadav, have moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking police protection. Allegedly, Yadav issued ‘life threats’ to them.
Saurabh and Gaurav Gupta, the brothers filing the plea, asserted that they received ‘threat calls’ and were pressured to retract their complaint. Residents of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh also mentioned their affiliation with Union Minister Maneka Gandhi’s People for Animals (PFA) organization.
The complaint against Yadav stemmed from a case last November, where they recorded a video of him and filed an FIR for allegedly using snake venom as a drug in rave parties.
Responding to their plea, Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi’s bench notified the Haryana government and scheduled the next hearing for April 18.
Yadav, who recently sparked controversy by engaging in a dispute with fellow YouTuber Sagar Thakur, known as ‘Maxtern,’ was arrested on March 17 concerning the snake venom case. He faces charges under the Wildlife Protection Act, Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPC) Act, and Sections 284 and 289 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The alleged rave party occurred in Noida’s sector 51, where authorities seized nine snakes, including cobras, pythons, sand snakes, and a rat snake—all protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act. Additionally, a small 20 ml tube of suspected snake venom was found in the possession of six accused, including the Bigg Boss OTT Season 2 winner.
Furthermore, a veterinary department’s medical report revealed that the venom glands of all nine snakes were missing, along with the fangs of eight snakes.
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