Baby crocodile found in BMC swimming pool at Dadar

A baby crocodile was found in a swimming pool in Mumbai, believed to have escaped from a nearby illegal private zoo. The crocodile was eventually caught and handed over to the forest department. The zoo has been under investigation, and a ball python was also seized during a raid.

MUMBAI: Early on Tuesday morning, staffers of the BMC-run MGM swimming pool at Shivaji Park were startled to discover something during their routine inspection: a baby crocodile making its way through the aquamarine waters.

Forest Department officers seize baby marsh crocodile from Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Swimming Pool after it was found in swimming early morning at Dadar. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

After a short chase, it was finally netted and handed over to the forest department.

How did a wild creature land in the pool? The management and MNS leader Sandeep Deshpande said that it came from a private zoo called Marine Aqua Zoo located right next to the pool and probably found its way via the drains. “There is no doubt at all that the crocodile came from there,” said Deshpande. “This zoo is on BMC land but it is completely illegal.”

The crocodile was first spotted at 5.30 am by Suryapati Das (34) who works in the filtration plant and stays on the premises. “I called my colleague Santosh Kumar Muduli (42) for help,” he said. “I tried to trap it but it kept swimming around. After a few minutes, it stopped to take rest and I managed to put a net over it.” Added Muduli, “I didn’t think it was a crocodile. I thought it was a monitor lizard.”

Das said the baby crocodile was the cynosure of all eyes when the first batches of swimmers and subsequently the media arrived. “Everyone wanted to see it,” he said. “When I was taking it out from the plastic can in which we’d put it, it bit me. But I was not scared. We have been brought up in rural India.”

The police also arrived at the spot, and some staffers called the forest department’s wildlife wing at Thane. “They first sent volunteers, but we wanted to hand over the crocodile only to government officers,” said a BMC officer. Much later, Round Forest Officer Harshal Sathe arrived with veterinary doctor Vinaya Jangle to take charge.

“The forest department went through the CCTV footage to check how the baby crocodile entered the pool but they couldn’t figure out much as it was very dark,” said a pool official. BMC coordinator for swimming pools, Sandeep Vaishampayan, said the baby crocodile was handed over to wildlife officers in the afternoon. A wildlife officer said that it would be released in the wild after examination.

The private zoo is on a BMC plot and is managed by one Nandkumar Moghe. His son, Yuvraj Moghe, denied that they had a crocodile there. The zoo has been under the scanner for a long time, but wildlife officers have reportedly been refusing to go there to investigate.

MNS leader Deshpande said that the police and forest secretary needed to take the issue of the illegal zoo seriously. After 1.30 pm, he spoke to several forest officers, and finally Forest Officer Sathe raided the private zoo and seized a ball python. “We will investigate how this python was kept in the zoo,” he said. Moghe, however, claimed that the python had been taken “for some inquiry”. “We will get it back,” he said.