Ranchi: A young crocodile who was swept out of the swollen Ganga entered a village near its banks in Sahebganj district, 400km from Ranchi, on Wednesday morning, arguably for the first time in recent memory.

Forest officials acted fast to prevent man-animal conflict. Neither was the 6.5-feet-long amphibian hurt, nor were villagers of Madanshahi in Taljhari block of the district bordering Bengal. Supervised by the forest department, the crocodile was released in the Ganga late on Wednesday evening, divisional forest officer Manish Kumar Tiwary said.

The river here is home to crocodiles and Gangetic dolphins, but numbers are not known.

Though crocodiles are spotted in the river occasionally, it is arguably for the first time that one ventured into a human habitat, Tiwary said.

Currents of the Ganga, which is in spate now, could have pushed the crocodile out. Executive engineer of water resources department in the district Awdhesh Kumar said on Wednesday, the river flowed at 28m, nearly a notch above danger mark of 27.25m. The limit was breached on Tuesday.

Tiwary said they came to know about the crocodile at 6am. "Someone called us up, sounding panicky. In no time, we pressed a six-member team for rescue. We have a team trained for such missions at Wildlife Institute of India (Dehradun, Uttarakhand)," Tiwary said. "Our aim was the crocodile should not feel threatened and turn violent and people should stay calm. It was easier said than done, as a huge crowd descended as the news spread."

He said they used ropes and cloth to rescue the animal.

"The first thing to do is to cover its face and eyes with a big cloth and leave it alone. Once the animal stops moving, slowly, with the help of large sticks, a noose of rope is put on its mouth to tie it. When that is done, its other body parts are tied with rope. This job took close to two hours. Then, the crocodile was taken to the forest office for medication and released into the water by evening," he said.

An official said they did not use the tranquilliser gun for two reasons, dosage risk and the time factor. "As it is a scheduled animal and not a rogue, securing permission for tranquillisers would have taken time," he said.

The divisional forest officer said they had upped vigil to prevent a rerun of the incident as the Ganga was swollen and 50 villages were near the river. "We are telling people to contact us in such situations to prevent man-animal conflict," he said. "The crocodile rescue team is on standby. If this reptile returns, I have spoken to chief wildlife warden (P.K. Verma) to shift it to Birsa zoo in Ranchi."