HYDERABAD: Remember the recent incident in Nehru Zoological Park, where a man jumped into the lions’ enclosure in a highly inebriated state, before being pulled away to safety?
Now here is a fact. The zoo administration had not one, but four breathalysers in place, bought way back in January, for detecting tipsy customers.
A question arises - why were they not used to detect and stop the man, Mukesh, at the entrance of the park itself, leave alone going anywhere near the big cats enclosure?
Here is the answer - the zoo officials were unaware of operating the breathalyser.
As simple as that.
To compensate, officials are making body odour a deciding factor to determine if a visitor is drunk.
Cut to the lion enclosure incident on Sunday, officials have pulled up their socks and called a technician on an emergency basis to learn the ABCs on using the breathalyser.
However, body-odour check seems likely to stay, as zoo officials say they would not check all visitors but only those whom they suspect of being drunk.
In the incident on Sunday, Mukesh and five of his friends entered the zoo after consuming alcohol at a bar.
“Each visitor to the zoo is frisked at the entrance. In future, if somebody smells of alcohol, we will ask them to take the breathalyser test. If it is found that they are drunk, ticket price will be refunded and they will be sent back,” said an official.