3.5-foot-long crocodile rescued

Madurai: A 3.5-foot- long mugger (Crocodylus palustris), a marsh crocodile species, was recused from a 40-feet-deep well in Vannamparaipatty in Melur on Saturday.

“We are clueless how a crocodile landed here. A team has been formed to investigate the same,” forest range officer E Syed Usman told TOI. Villagers of Vannamparaipatty in Melur found the crocodile wriggling in the marshy bottom of the well belonging to farmer N Murugan. Few villagers lowered a noose into the well and after some struggle managed to get the reptile’s hind limbs trapped. Since it was heavy, the other end of the rope was tied to a tractor and it was lifted.

Meanwhile a team of eight forest department personnel led by the range officer and four expert reptile handlers from ‘Oorvanam’ – an NGO-- headed to the spot. “We assumed that villagers mistook a monitor lizard as crocodile,” P R Vishwanathan of Oorvanam said.

The team took the crocodile to the office of the district forest officer (DFO) in Madurai.

Forest department and villagers are also on alert as it is said that there could be another crocodile in a nearby well. Forest department personnel suspect that it could have been washed away from a reservoir and accidentally landed into the well that did not have a sidewall. tnn