![trending news in india today trending news in india today](https://akm-img-a-in.tosshub.com/indiatoday/images/story/202002/parash_shah.png)
There were deep wounds on his body, indicating a crocodile attack, said forest officers.
![trending news in india today trending news in india today](https://images.indianexpress.com/2021/01/rd-parade_1200_twt.jpg)
At daybreak on Tuesday, rescuers resumed looking for Antar and found his body in the water. A group of villagers sat holding on to the ropes that trussed up the croc’s limbs, while the cold-blooded reptile hunkered down for the night. On the sands, however, the stand-off continued. A rescue team from SDRF launched a search operation for Antar but found no trace. Even if the crocodile attacked the child, there was no way it had swallowed him, they explained, but the villagers didn’t budge. The officers kept trying to convince the villagers that the boy was more likely in the river and they were looking for him. By evening, news had spread and hundreds from nearby villages swarmed to the spot. The villagers then insisted that forest officials “surgically recover the boy from its stomach”, and refused to release the reptile. Uniformed men rushed to the village and stopped the villagers from cutting up the croc’s belly. Someone alerted police and the forest department. The villagers saw the croc’s "bloated belly" and believed it was proof that the boy was inside. The stick stood no chance against the croc’s jaws but the reptile didn’t bother with it. A stick was inserted between its jaws in an attempt to stop it from regurgitating the boy and chewing him. They tied up its limbs while a group of men held down its jaws. Scores of villagers, armed with sticks, swarmed into the river, caught the croc in a net and hauled it ashore. They pointed out a giant 13-footer which they believed was the "killer croc". As his parents began frantically looking for him, some villagers claimed they had seen a crocodile swallow the boy alive. He was swimming in the Chambal around 9am when he vanished. Antar lived in Raghunathpur village, around 180km from Gwalior city and a river’s width from Rajasthan.
![trending news in india today trending news in india today](https://akm-img-a-in.tosshub.com/indiatoday/images/story/201902/Capture_192.png)
Forest officers freed the crocodile and released it away from human habitation while a mourning village carried the child’s body home for the last rites. In the morning, Antar Singh’s body was found floating in the Chambal river. The crocodile, its limbs tied and a stick clamped between its jaws to “stop it from chewing”, didn’t move a muscle and stayed still, waiting for the humans to figure it out. The child’s family members even called out his name, hoping he would respond from inside the reptile’s belly. This led to a three-way stand-off all night, with villagers insisting that the boy was alive inside the croc and forest officials and police explaining it wasn’t possible. Suspecting that a crocodile had swallowed a seven-year-old boy in MP’s Sheopur, villagers captured the 13-footer, dragged it ashore, tied it up and tried to slit its stomach to rescue the child. BHOPAL: The Chambal riverbanks have seen more than their share of the wild, but rarely as bizarre as this.