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Villagers capture crocodile to recover body of boy they thought it had swallowed
After hours of convincing by the forest department and search operations team, the villagers finally relented after they found the boy’s body in the Chambal River
Angry villagers from Raghunathpur in Madhya Pradesh's Sheopur district on Tuesday captured a crocodile for over seven hours so that they could recover the body of a seven-year-old boy who they thought the reptile had swallowed. The incident occurred in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh.
After hours of convincing by the forest department and search operations team, the villagers finally relented after they found the boy’s body in the Chambal River.
The boy’s body was found on Tuesday and a guard was deployed at the banks of the river to protect the crocodile.
“On Monday, the boy from Raghunathpur village had gone to Rijheta ghat to take a bath. He was attacked by a crocodile and was dragged into the water. Villagers, who were present at the ghat informed his father Lakshman Singh. Later, the villagers caught the crocodile with the help of a fishing net. They put wooden logs in the mouth of the crocodile hoping it won’t be able to chew the boy. They were putting wooden logs inside the mouth thinking the animal will vomit the boy’s body,” said Satendra Tomar, additional superintendent of police, Morena.
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The forest team reached the spot and tried to convince the villagers that the crocodile can’t swallow the boy. “The stomach of the crocodile was looking empty so there was no chance that the crocodile could have eaten the boy. Villagers were not convinced. When police and SDRF launched the rescue operation late evening on Monday, the villagers released the crocodile,” said Swaroop Dixit, divisional forest officer.
Dixit said, “We convinced the family as well as other villagers that the body will be found in the river and the family will receive compensation against it.”
“The SDRF team found the body of the boy on Tuesday. The body was handed over after post-mortem. The crocodile was released in the river on Tuesday morning but a guard was deployed to take care of it from the villagers,” said DFO.
(With inputs from Shivpratap Singh from Morena)
