At least six crocodiles have strayed into residential areas in Uttar Pradesh's Mirzapur since last week.
Even for a village used to the spurt in sightings of creepy crawlers during the periodic monsoon floods, running into an eight-foot crocodile can be tad overwhelming.
But on Friday morning, that sight was exactly what welcomed residents of Kakrad in Uttar Pradesh's Mirzapur district set by the Ganges.
A day earlier, a baby crocodile had been caught by villagers nearby and released into the water. This one however was too hot to handle.
As the panicked creature first tried to hide and then escape, frantic villagers made a call to the local first department.
Soon, a four-member forest team arrived on a tempo and got down to the job. "We reached the spot soon after receiving the information and saw that the villagers had surrounded the crocodile. With the help of villagers, we put a rope around the neck of the crocodile and then between his legs from behind and successfully captured him. However, we faced a lot of difficulties in capturing it as it is about 7 to 8 feet long," said a forest department worker Kanhaiya.
The crocodile was then heaved on the back of the tempo, with villagers seated on top of the roof holding on to the ropes used to tie the crocodile. A little down the road, the tempo was stopped, the ropes cut and the crocodile swiftly disappeared into the Ganga.
Torrential rainfall over the last few days has caused Ganges to swell leading to floods in several low lying areas. This is the sixth case of a crocodile straying into a residential area in Mirzapur since last week.