Two crocodiles rescued from Haryana’s Kurukshetra village by local divers

Adult male and female crocodiles were rescued from a drain near Dabkheri village in the Kurukshetra district

Adult male and female crocodiles were rescued from a drain near Dabkheri village in the Kurukshetra district.

The crocodiles were shifted to the breeding centre in a private vehicle. The reptiles were left at the Crocodile Breeding Centre (CBC) located at Bhor Saidan village near Pehowa town in Haryana, which has around 50 crocodiles.

The eight-foot-long male crocodile was an adult and while the female was around six-foot-long. The villagers said that the crocodiles were spotted on several occasions by the locals in the past couple of days and were rescued by volunteers led by a diver Parghat Singh.

In the videos of the rescue operation, which have gone viral on social media, the diver, along with two others, were seen rescuing the crocodiles from a pond with the help of a rope. The crocodiles were shifted to the breeding centre in a private vehicle. The reptiles were left at the Crocodile Breeding Centre (CBC) located at Bhor Saidan village near Pehowa town, which has around 50 crocodiles.

“After several people spotted the crocodiles, we started a search operation, and on Monday, we managed to rescue them,” said Parghat Singh, who claimed to have rescued 16 crocodiles so far.

Wildlife officials unaware

Rajiv Garg, Kurukshetra Wildlife Inspector, could not be contacted after repeated attempts and he did not even respond to text messages sent to him for comments on why wildlife officials failed to get any information about the presence of the crocodiles and rescue them.

Later, after getting the information from the divers, the officials from the wildlife department reached the spot and took the crocodiles in a vehicle to the CBC.

The wildlife officials said they don’t have any information about how these reptiles ended up in a local pond. But the locals said that the Saraswati drain, flowing near the breeding centre, has become a habitat for the reptiles. Many locals claimed that earlier too, the reptiles have been rescued from the drains, on several occasions.

In July 2021, an adult female crocodile was rescued from a pond near Samaspur village in the Kurukshetra district.