According to Mohite, the SGNP team and 10 WWA volunteers reached the location where the crocodile had been spotted around 9 pm on Saturday to install a cage trap. “We realised that the crocodile can be caught by using other techniques and so our team members entered the water and by 2 am it was successfully rescued,” he said.

The crocodile was first spotted a few days ago by a paani puri vendor in the area. He reported this to people in the neighbourhood but no one took him seriously. Later, a local resident spotted it and the sightings were reported to Raju Pednekar, a Shiv Sena leader and former councillor of the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray(UBT) group, following which the forest department was alerted.

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It is likely that the crocodile reached the nullah from the Oshiwara river which originates in the Aarey Milk Colony, flows through the Goregaon hills, crosses Aarey Milk Colony, and then empties into Malad creek.

The mugger crocodile (Crocodylus Palustris), also called the Indian marsh crocodile, is native to the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, Burma, Pakistan and some parts of Iran. It is most commonly found in freshwater environments such as rivers, lakes, hill streams, village ponds and human-made reservoirs.

 At one point, muggers used to be widespread throughout the subcontinent, but over time, their populations have dwindled due to habitat destruction, hunting, loss of prey base, human encroachment and increasing conflict situations.