According to some elderly people in the village, the crocodile lived for 50 years and “terrorized” the villagers during that time. It is considered by people to be the “embodiment of the devil” as it always stalks and eats people.

The people of Bangka Belitung recruited skilled crocodile catchers to capture them. The crocodile then got caught in a knife net, struggled for two days and could not get out and died of exhaustion.

Because the crocodile was so heavy, people had to hire an excavator to take it to the “execution platform”.

After beheading the crocodile, people did not accept handing over the body to the local conservation area on the grounds that “all the villagers would die” if the animal’s body was taken elsewhere.

Septian Garo – director of the Bangka Belitung Natural reserve – said that before the crocodile was killed by people, he and a few local leaders tried to negotiate with the villagers to take it to live elsewhere.

However, the people of Bangka Belitung believe that this crocodile has become a “devil” and cannot be taken to another place, both in life and in death.

“Many people think that the crocodile should not be taken out of the village because it is a demon,” Mr. Septian Garo said.

After the crocodile died and was brought ashore, local officials came to check and discovered that there were no teeth left in the animal’s mouth.

The crocodile’s head was cut off and all its teeth were removed. This is a ritual to “kill demons”.

“We had to bury the head and body of this crocodile in two separate places. This is a demon. Before cutting off its head, we also have to perform a ceremony,” said Junaidi – head of Bangka Belitung village.