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Crocodile creates panic in village
THE PRESENCE of a crocodile in Pahalwanpurva village near the banks of the Ganga created panic among the villagers here on Monday.
THE PRESENCE of a crocodile in Pahalwanpurva village near the banks of the Ganga created panic among the villagers here on Monday.
On seeing the crocodile, the panic-stricken villagers threw stones at it. The crocodile was first noticed by a seven-year-old child who raised an alarm. The villagers rushed to the spot and threw stones at the crocodile so that it might run away but they failed to do so.
Meanwhile, a villager informed the zoo authorities about the incident and asked them to trap it and put it in the zoo enclosure.
Zoo director R Hemant Kumar sent a team of experts to the village to catch the crocodile.
The team members expert caught hold of the crocodile and brought it to the zoo. According to the zoo director, the crocodile was two-year-old and it did not belong to the zoo.
A large number of villagers who reached the zoo alleged that the crocodile had come out of the zoo enclosure.
He showed the villagers that the area where the crocodiles were kept was surrounded by a two-and-a half-foot high wall.
Besides, there was a high boundary wall outside the zoo which ruled out all possibilities of crocodiles going out of the zoo campus, he added.
To ascertain that the crocodile was not from the zoo, he did the counting of the crocodiles and found that all the 40 crocodiles were present in the enclosure.
Finally, the director asked the zoo staff to release the crocodile in the Ganga.
Talking to HT the director said that it was not possible to house an outsider in the enclosure. “Crocodiles are ‘territorial’ amphibians and they do not allow any outsider to live with them in their territory,” he said.
