CNN-IBN

Balianta, Jun 5: Thirty-one-year-old Bimbala Bhoi in the village of Balianta in Orissa has married a cobra idol.

Bimbala insists she is spiritually married to a real cobra, which stays under a tree and that she would have nobody else for husband.

"Whenever we arranged marriage for her elsewhere, she refused and said she would only marry the snake. So we got her married to the snake," says Bimbala's mother, Juti.

Bimbala is now on a pilgrimage that follows a marriage in these parts. The marriage has the blessings of the people of Balianta.

"We did not have any objection to the marriage. In fact, we cooperated on the occasion and hundreds of people gathered," says villager Sirdhar Das.

As this strange news spread, the State Women's Commission in Bhubaneswar got into the act. It sent an inquiry team to find out if she was forced to marry a snake.

"She was not forced to marry the snake. She wanted to marry Lord Shiva and has married a metal snake as his representative," says Assistant Field Officer, State Woman Commission, Orissa, Harapriya Nayak.

This is not the first such superstitious marriage in this area.

Prior to this, there have been incidents where girls have got married to trees and even dogs for some superstitious beliefs.