A 10ft-long crocodile that got swept into a pond of a Sunderbans village because of the storm surge during Cyclone Yaas was rescued on Friday.

Bishnu Das, who stays near the pond in Patharpratima, first raised the alarm on Friday morning. Soon a crowd gathered around the pond and several people tried to take photographs of the reptile. The villagers alerted the local forest beat office.

A team from the South 24-Parganas division and trained personnel from the Bhagabatpur crocodile sanctuary in Patharpratima arrived at the village and initiated a rescue operation along the muddy banks of the pond.

Crocodiles swimming into ponds in the Sunderbans are uncommon after villages were secured with nylon fencing. “But the fencing got damaged in several areas in the South 24-Parganas division because of the cyclone,” a senior forester said.

The rescue team erected a bamboo barricade around the pond to prevent curious onlookers from getting too close to the crocodile.

Milan Kanti Mandal, divisional forest officer (DFO), South 24-Parganas, said: “As the crowds kept shouting to draw the reptile’s attention, it was mostly swimming below the surface. The team could spot it only when its nostrils surfaced to breathe… it was a challenge to locate and catch it.”

Forest officials then lowered a nylon net at one end of the pond and started pulling it towards the bank.

The crocodile managed to give the team the slip several times before a team member managed to get a noose around its snout.

“Crocodiles are incredibly powerful… we needed several men to pull the net as well as the rope,” Mandal said.

Once near the bank, the team used bamboo poles to “steer” the reptile head towards them. A team member threw a gunny bag connected with a rope over its head and caught hold of its snout. Another got on top of its back to restrict its movement.

“Once the crocodile failed to see, it made things easier for us and we managed to tie it with ropes,” Mandal said.

The reptile was later released into a creek near the Lothian island.

“The pond was inundated with water during Cyclone Yaas from the river and in all possibility the crocodile got swept in,” a forest official who was part of the rescue team said.