Bablu Das was fishing in the Teesta River on Monday morning (September 21, 2026) when his phone rang. It was the sluice gate operator from the Gajoldoba Teesta Barrage upstream. “An elephant calf is going downstream. Save it,” a man screamed from the other side.

A few minutes earlier, the alert gate operator, Tapan Das, had spotted the four-day-old calf floating down a swirling Teesta and lifted the gate further to prevent it from smashing into the structure.

The calf was crossing the river near the barrage when the strong currents swept it away from the herd. Its mother crossed the river and started a frenetic search for the calf.

The calf waits for its mom on the Teesta riverbed.

Special arrangement

Some 5 km away, Bablu Das and his friends — Ajay, Mithu, Biswanath and Gopal — had rowed their dinghy, manoeuvring it with bamboo staves to stay on course, and located the calf, which had popped its trunk out of the raging river, like a periscope, to breathe.

In a video shot by one of the boatmen, a voice could be heard: “Ekdom baccha re! Dhor, dhor, dhor [It’s a small calf. Save it].” The dinghy chased the calf, and a minute later, Amit and Biswajit yanked it onto the boat before running a check. It was still breathing.

“The calf looked nervous. Its body was very cold. We tried to calm it and steered the boat to the riverbank,” Mr. Das told .

The reunion

In the meantime, forest officials from different ranges of the Baikunthapur Forest Division had driven along the river bank with a veterinarian to prepare for what Samiran Raj, the Range Officer of Belacoba Range, termed “the most important part of the mission — the reunion with its mother”.

The calf walks towards its mother on a dry stretch of the Teesta riverbed.

Special arrangement

The calf was taken to the upstream of the barrage, the very place where it was separated from the herd, where the team found the elephants waiting for the calf.

Mr. Raj, who had accompanied the team, said the team could not identify the mother. The “intention was simple” – release the calf on a dry stretch of the riverbed and wait. “The calf would call its mother, allowing her to identify her baby and come back to take it,” he said.

But there was a problem. Hundreds had gathered to make reels, and the commotion kept the herd away, which hid behind the swathe of tall wild grass growing along the riverbank. The calf kept coming back to its rescuers as it felt safe, said Mr. Raj. Moments later, it began calling for its mother from a distance. The mother responded and emerged, sauntering towards the calf and letting out a loud rumble before enveloping it in her trunk.

Mudit Kumar, the DFO of Baikunthapur Division, termed the two-hour operation a “beautiful story of rescue and reunion” and lauded the local fishermen and the forest team.

Local heroes

Back in their village, the five fishermen were being hailed as heroes. The videos had gone viral, and local NGOs had been prompt to felicitate them. Surrounded by villagers at a daily evening adda, where the day’s topic was the brief social media fame of the five rescuers, Mr. Das told that this was not their first rescue effort.

“We have been coordinating with the forest department and have rescued elephant calves and deer. We live next to the Teesta and spend our entire day there, fishing,” said Mr. Das, who is also the secretary of the Uttarbanga Matsyajibi Forum.

While the Forest Department praised the five fishermen's “courage, local knowledge, boating skills, and timely assistance,” Mr. Das said they had limitations. “We operate a small dinghy and don’t have life jackets. While we will go to any extent to save a life, we urge the government to help us,” he said.