OUR CORRESPONDENT The pangolin rescued from Alipurduar last night. Picture by Anirban Choudhury Alipurduar, July 24: A pangolin found in a drain here was rescued last night and later released in the forest. Foresters are wondering how the nocturnal reptile which is in the Schedule-1 category, reached Alipurduar town. Pradeep Roy, a boy living in Ward 10 of the Alipurduar Municipality, was going home around 10.30 last night when he saw something moving in the roadside drain. As he started shouting, local people, including the traders of the daily market nearby, reached the spot. Soon, a crowd of not less than 200 people gathered and some of them even had sticks to hit the unknown creature. A boy brought a bucket made of bamboo and threw it over the animal so that it could not move. Some people reportedly tried to kill the animal. Hearing the hullabaloo, Dipto Chatterjee, the vice-chairman of the Alipurduar civic body as well as the local councillor, came out of the house and arrived at the spot. Chatterjee was not allowed by the people to get near the animal. He contacted Buxa Tiger Reserve and Prem Kumar Khalko, the range officer of Rajabhatkhawa Mobile Range, soon reached the scene. Khalko also faced a lot of problems in getting near the animal. He somehow made his way through the people and got near the creature. To identify the animal, the forester pushed the bucket and flashed the torch into it. Khalko identified the animal as pangolin, a nocturnal reptile. The officer held the reptile by its tail and many people tried to touch it when he was taking it to his vehicle. He kept the pangolin in the vehicle and sped away. The reptile was kept in the range office last night and with the permission of deputy field director (DFD) of Buxa Tiger Reserve (West), it was released in the 22 Mile area of Rajabhatkhawa forest this morning. The councillor said when he had reached the spot the crowd did not let him get near the reptile. "I asked them not to touch it as we were not sure what it was.' The DFD (West), A.P. Singh, said pangolin was a Schedule-I animal, which means the reptile was rare or endangered. "But what puzzles us is that how the adult male pangolin has reached the town area. It usually doesn't venture out of the forest. We released the reptile in the 22 Mile area of Rajabhatkhawa forest. We will search the area to find if any other pangolin is there,' said the officer.