A crocodile was killed in Bihar’s Vaishali district on Tuesday after it had taken away an 11-year-old boy into the Ganga.

The incident occurred at Khalsa ghat in the Raghopur diara (riverine) area under the Bidupur police station.

One Dharmendra Das of Gokhulpur village had bought a motorcycle and went to the banks of the Ganga with his family to perform some rituals for the new vehicle.

Preparations were going on and the child Ankit Kumar went with his mother to take a dip in the holy river. “Ankit took a bath and was changing his clothes when a crocodile suddenly came out of the water, grabbed him by his legs and dragged him into the river. His family members raised an alarm and tried to trace the boy, but could not find him,” Bidupur station house officer (SHO) Seraz Hussain told The Telegraph.

“A large number of locals also assembled there with boats and nets. They trapped and pulled out the boy and the crocodile in a net. The kid was dead by then. He had severe wounds in three places on his body. The angry people beat the reptile to death,” Hussain added.

Somebody present in the crowd informed the police, who rushed to the place.

The police registered a case of unnatural death and sent Ankit’s body for post-mortem.

The police officials said that they informed the environment and forest department about the incident and the killing of the crocodile. A team of forest officials reached the spot several hours afterthe incident.

“Our team has recovered the carcass of the crocodile. The autopsy would be conducted on Wednesday. Wewill register a case underthe provisions of the Wildlife Act and take further action against the people involvedin killing the animal,” Vaishali divisional forest officer(DFO) Amita Raj told The Telegraph.

Asked about the delay in the forest department’s team reaching the site, she said that the place of incident was a remote one that took around an hour of travelling.

“We got information only after the entire incident was over. One of our officials reached there soon after, but could not do much because of the large and angry crowd. We were able to recover the body after our team reached there. We have sympathy for the family of the deceased kid, but the killing of wild animals cannot be justified because they act according to their nature,” Amita said.

The DFO added that the forest officials will conduct an awareness campaign in the area to enlighten people about the behaviour of wild animals and how to avoid man-animal conflict.