Two farmers fed up with bribery demands have dumped three sacks filled with snakes on the floor of a busy tax office in northern India.

The 40 or so snakes of different sizes and species, including at least four deadly cobras, sent clerks and villagers climbing on to tables and scurrying out of the door to escape the office in Basti, 185 miles south-east of Lucknow, according to local official Ramsukh Sharma.

"Snakes started climbing up the tables and chairs," he said. "There was total chaos. Hundreds of people gathered outside the room, some of them with sticks in their hands, shouting that the snakes should be killed."

No one was bitten or injured during the incident on Tuesday afternoon. Police and forest officials captured the snakes.

The farmers had been asking for tax records for their land in nearby Narharpur village, but officials withheld the files for weeks while allegedly demanding bribes.

Protests against seemingly endemic corruption in India are common. Scams have hit the headlines and badly damaged the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and his ailing administration. But it is the daily payment of small bribes to petty officials, policemen or even to medical staff that causes widespread resentment. ...