Armed gang kidnaps schoolgirl at gunpoint
An armed gang broke into a teenager’s house in Jagaddal, North 24-Parganas, on Monday night and kidnapped her at gunpoint. They hit her mother in the head with a revolver butt and hurled at least four bombs at neighbours when they tried to rescue the girl.
This comes only a day after a 14-year-old girl was slashed with a razor for fighting off an attempted rape in Bijpur, barely 15km from the scene of Monday night’s crime. North 24-Parganas is reeling under a series of brutal crimes against women. There have been six molestations or attempted rapes in the last two months alone and all the victims have been school-going girls.
The father of the 17-year-old kidnap victim has a clear suspect — Habra youth Sushanta Acharya, who was allegedly pressuring her to marry him. The girl’s mother says she saw him leading the gang that barged into the house and tore the girl from her arms.
Sushanta met the girl at a wedding two years ago and had been trying to force her into a relationship but she refused when she learnt that he was involved in anti-social activities, say sources. But Sushanta stalked her and repeatedly threatened to harm her if she did not marry him, says her family. “He even tried to marry her forcibly. When my daughter spurned him again a few days ago, he threatened her with dire consequences,” said the girl’s father, who works with a private firm in Kolkata.
Around 11pm on Monday, two Maruti vans stopped in front of the girl’s two-storied house and a dozen men got out. “My husband always returns late from work. Sushanta and his men barged into our room after breaking down the main door on the ground floor. We initially thought that it was robbers. Then I saw Sushanta. He demanded that my daughter go with him. She was already traumatized on seeing the armed men and clung to me, sobbing. Sushanta and his aides grabbed her hands and pulled her away from me. When I tried to hold on, they hit me on the head with a revolver butt. My daughter, too, was beaten up when she came to my rescue. They held a gun to her head, tied her hands behind her back and took her away,” said the girl’s mother.
On hearing the commotion, a crowd had gathered downstairs and confronted the gang that was pushing the teenager into a van. “When some local youths tried to chase the goons, they hurled four bombs and sped off,” a neighbour said.
The girl’s father got the news when he was on the last local train from Kolkata. He and his wife filed a complaint at Jagaddal police station around 1am on Tuesday. The girl’s mother was then taken to hospital to have her injuries tended to.
The police have registered a case of kidnapping. “We have started combing operations to trace the girl. The surrounding police stations have been alerted. Raiding parties have already been to the home of the accused and are trying to track him down,” said Kalyan Mukherjee, DC, detective department, Barrackpore.
