Sunderbans: A 15ft crocodile peeped out of the water as two men were about to get into a pond in their village in Gosaba, Sunderbans, to bathe on Tuesday.

They ran home and raised the alarm.

Villagers landed up on the bank of the pond in hordes at Choto Mollakhali village and cordoned off the water body with fishing nets.

A team of forest officials arrived in the village, which is in the coastal police station area, within three hours and rescued the saltwater crocodile.

The reptile was taken to the Jharkhali rescue centre where it underwent medical examination.

"The crocodile will be kept under observation for some time and if its medical condition meets all the parameters, it will be released in a river," a forest department official said.

The pond is close to the Heribhanga river in the area. It appeared the crocodile crossed the river bank during high tide, the forest official said.

The villagers told forest officials that two of them went to the pond around noon just like other days.

As they were about to hit the water, one of them spotted the crocodile peeping out of the water near the banks.

They raised the alarm and villagers, mostly fishermen, cordoned off the pond with fishing nets.

"Crocodiles have killed people in the Sunderbans. Had the two got into the water, it could have been fatal," the forest official said.

Ponds in the village are full of fishes. At times, crocodiles cross over river banks and enter the ponds to find easy prey.

"There are past instances of crocodiles entering village ponds. But they don't travel too fare from the rivers," a wildlife activist who runs an NGO in the Sunderbans said.

"Instead, it enters ponds close to riverbanks. The conservation effort was successful as the crocodile was rescued after being spotted."

The rescue was possible because of the joint forest management (JFM), conservationists said.

The forest department undertakes various welfare programmes for villagers under JFM.

As a natural consequence, villagers get involved in conservation work and help prevent poaching and attack on wildlife, a conservationist said.

"Unlike what happened in Lalgarh where villagers killed the tiger, here, they alerted the forest department and helped in the rescue work.

"The villagers could have killed the crocodile but they didn't panic and knew it had to be rescued," the conservationist said.

Saltwater crocodiles are found in the Gangetic delta in the Sunderbans estuary covering more than 4,000sq km in good numbers.

They prefer rivers with low current and undisturbed wetlands. Crocodiles avoid strong winds and waves because they require calm water to swim effectively.

Saltwater and Nile crocodiles are considered dangerous. Saltwater crocodiles can swim more than 1,000km at a stretch.