Puri: There was no snake inside Ratna Bhandar of the Jagannath Temple in Puri. It was cleared from a statement made Snake Helpline head who was part of the team present outside the treasury.

"We were asked to discharge our duty in the process of opening the Ratna Bhandar. However, we were not called up into the inner chamber," informed Subhendu Mallick, the Snake Helpline chief, after coming out of the temple.

He made it clear that the team that entered the inner chamber of Ratna Bhandar had sought Snake Helpline's assistance in opening Ratna Bhandar. As per their instruction, the snake helpline members were present outside Ratna Bhandar. However, they did not enter as they did not get any signal from them.

"We are ready to give our service to the team whenever they need our assistance in opening of Ratna Bhandar," Mallick stated.

Dr. CBK Mohanty, another member of Ratna Bhandar monitoring committee, who was among the 15-member team, also ruled out presence of snake inside the Ratna Bhandar.

"I could not see any snake inside there. We just inspected containers, we did not find any awkward situation inside inner chamber of Ratna Bhandar," he said.

Worth mentioning, the 'mysterious' Ratna Bhandar was opened after a period of 46 years. The door was last opened in 1978.