Abducted by pool car driver, 6-yr-old charts great escape

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

A spunky six-year-old schoolgirl used her guts and wits to escape from her kidnappers — her pool car driver and a rickshawpuller — in Salt Lake on Monday. Notwithstanding little Satwiki Chakraborty’s bravery, the incident will send a shudder through every parent that has a child travelling by pool car.
    Satwiki was not only tied up and gagged, but also slapped repeatedly while being held hostage in a shop in Falguni Market. After a half hour in complete darkness, she managed to undo the knots, rip the plaster off her mouth and banged on the locked shutters until someone heard her. Both the suspects are in custody and have confessed to kidnapping her for ransom, say police.
    For two years, Satwiki, a Class-I student of Loreto House on Middleton Street, took the same pool car to school, driven by 22-year-old Vinod Singh Rathore alias Bunty. Her classes got over by 1pm and she would be home within the hour. She was always the first to board and last to get off.
    On Monday, Bunty dropped off all the other students and stopped the car in AJ Block, saying the vehicle had run out of fuel. He then walked up to Kartick Mondal, a rickshawpuller.
    The child thought he had arranged for her to reach home and climbed into the rickshaw. But instead of pedalling towards her house, Mondal rode out of AJ Block. When Satwiki asked him why, Mondal said he was taking a shortcut. Instead, he took her to Falguni Market, where Bunty has a building materials shop by the name of Rathore Enterprises. The rickshawpuller dragged little Satwiki inside and tied her arms behind her back with a ‘gamchha’. There was no one around in that deserted hour to help her. Mondal thrashed the child when she shouted for help and gagged her with sticking plaster. He then pushed her into the shop and pulled down the shutters.
    By then, Satwiki’s parents — mother Mithu and father Saurav Chakraborty, a zoology professor at Hooghly Mahasweta Devi College — had called up Bunty, who told them that he had dropped her near the house as usual. The parents panicked and called Bidhannagar East police. Parents shocked at trusted pool car driver’s betrayal
Kolkata: As her parents panicked, little Satwiki Chakraborty was making plans to free herself from the Falguni Market shop. Bruised from being beaten by rickshawpuller Kartick Mondal, the six-yearold flexed and unflexed her wrists to loosen the knot.
    In the darkness and stifling heat, the six-year-old kept her wits and started looking for a way to draw attention. A thin sliver of light told her there was a small window, but it was locked and barred. Satwiki kept pushing till the window opened a little and then she screamed. But no one heard her. Then, she turned to the shutter and started banging on it.
    Sailendra Chowdhury, a local resident, and veterinarian Pankaj Banerjee, who has a chamber in the market, heard the noise and went to inquire. They were stunned to hear a little girl’s voice. They broke down the lock and rescued Satwiki. She seemed unruffled. After applying first-aid, they took her to Bidhannagar South police station, where police got in touch with her parents.
    Satwiki told police every detail of the ordeal and then the hunt started for her pool car driver Vinod Singh Rathore alias Bunty. Police got his address from her parents and arrested Bunty. He initially claimed a white car had picked up the girl after he dropped her near the Chakrabortys’ residence. Grilled further, he confessed that he had hatched the kidnap plot with Mondal. The rickshaw-puller was arrested.
    “The two are not history sheeters. It seems that they hatched the plot to make some quick money. Had they been hardened criminals, it may have been difficult to track down the girl,” said Rahul Srivastava, SP, North 24-Parganas.
    The shocked parents have asked police to find out if the pool car agency was also involved. “We could never have believed that Bunty would do something like this. We had lost all hope when Satwiki did not return home. Fortunately for us, she was smart enough to free herself,” the child’s mother said.