Women cops from Bengal face Haryana mob to rescue minor girls

KOLKATA: Two women cops from Bengal, on a mission to rescue a trafficked girl, braved a 600-strong mob in Haryana and ended up rescuing three minors on Wednesday evening. Chased by a crowd screaming for "public justice", the cops had to ask their Haryana counterparts to fire in the air to save their lives.
All three girls had been kidnapped to Haryana — a state with a dismal sex ratio of 887 per 1000 males — to be forcibly married off, say police.The braveheart cops — sub-inspector Piyali Ghosh and constable Madhumita Das from Sankrail police station in Howrah rural, brush it off as part of their duty. "I am happy that the job was done," Ghosh told TOI on Thursday. "We thank the constant help we received from anti-trafficking NGO, Shakti Vahini. We received little support from Haryana Police though Uttar Pradesh police always backed our raids. But then everything fell in place. This was our first raid in Haryana and now we know we need to do our homework to be successful here," she said.
Ghosh, Das and two male constables left for Haryana four days ago, chasing a specific lead. They had arrested a suspect, Mehfizza, in Howrah on August 20 who told them that she had sold a 15-year-old Sankrail girl in Haryana's Palwal with the intention of making her a bride to 10 men in a remote village.
The small team was hounded by some 600 villagers for "trying to kidnap their women". They were chased through open fields and had to request the Haryana cops to fire in the air to save their lives. By Wednesday evening, they had rescued three minors from Bengal and arrested nine traffickers from Palwal in Haryana and Kamargaon (UP).