Attack of the 'giant leech': Kedah family traumatised
EMBUN MAJID, ADIE SURI ZULKEFLI
New Straits Times11 October 2017
JERLUN: What if you are in a mad rush to answer the call of nature but you suddenly spotted a giant, unidentifiable, black creature slithering out from the toilet bowl?
Lutfi Asraf Mat Zuki was about to enter the bathroom to his laundry about 8pm last Friday when he noticed something was moving inside the squat toilet bowl.
The 28-year-old immediately rushed out from the bathroom to alert his mother Che Putih Hassan, 49.
"The creature then slithered out from the toilet to the bathroom. At first we were too afraid to get near it but we muster our courage to catch it before it made it’s into the house," said Lutfi, relating his scary encounter with the creature at his home in Kampung Telaga Jambu, Megat Dewa in Kodiang.
After Lutfi and his brother, Zularif, 23, together with their 56-year-old father Mat Zuki Yaakob subsequently caught the creature, which turned out to be a two-metre long snake.
They managed to trap the reptile in a gunny sack.
Mat Zuki believed that the creature could have entered the toilet bowl through a water discharge pipe located at the sewerage tank at the back of their house.
He said the family had never seen such creature before but some of the locals said it was "ular karung guni" or also known as "ular guni buruk" in some places.
"Ular karung guni" or elephant trunk snake is a non-venomous aquatic snake.
"The snake, dark in colour with a yellow belly weighed almost 20kg and we are baffled as to how a snake so big could have passed through the pipe," he said.
The family kept the snake for two days before releasing it into a canal just in front of the house.
Mat Zuki said this was the second time a snake entered their house. The first was a python, two years ago.
His wife, Che Putih said she was afraid to take a closer look at the creature and asked her daughter Zulaikha Hannani, 19, to shoot of video of the snake.
"She then shared the video in our family WhatsApp group before my son Mohd Zulhanif uploaded it on his Facebook page," she said.
Zulaikha said the family was still traumatised by the incident and now, each time they entered the bathroom, they take extra precaution, checking the surroundings first for the presence of any unwanted visitor.
"I did not even dare to get near the bathroom while filming the creature. It took us two years to overcome the shock when the first snake entered the house and now it happened again,” she said.
Zulhanif, when contacted, said he shared the video on his Facebook page on Friday night and was surprised that it was shared more than 4,000 times and received almost 1,000 comments.
He added a news portal based in the United Kingdom had also contacted him to check on the video.
"Most comments from netizens said they were shocked and scared since the snake was big and the shape was weird.
"There are also who commented that the video was a hoax citing that we could have use a cloth and pull it with string just to seek publicity," he said.
Meanwhile, Kedah Perhilitan director Inche Ali @ Muhammad Ali Che Aman when contacted confirmed that the snake was an elephant trunk snake, which can be found in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. © New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
