Kolkata: Woman fights snatchers, shot

TNN

Kolkata, 25 Jan 2012: Bike-borne goons fired at a woman and her daughters, aged 10 and four, at a Kasba playground when she fought off their attempts to snatch her mangalsutra on Tuesday evening. Vidya Desai, 35, was shot in the abdomen and lay bleeding for about 10 minutes as her neighbours froze in horror.

 

The children kept crying over their slumped mother, unable to comprehend what had happened. The elder girl was finally jolted by the growing pool of blood and ran to call her father, a central excise officer. Vidya is now in ICU in a critical condition. A CAT scan shows a bullet lodged in her body. This incident will make every Kolkatan think twice before visiting the neigbourhood park or even taking an evening walk in their locality.

 

Vidya was playing badminton with her daughters Rachna and Prerna at a playground a stone’s throw from her home on RK Chatterjee Road when three men on a "black bike" screeched to a halt beside her. "One of them snatched my mother’s mangalsutra and they tried to speed off but ma turned around and latched on to the bike," said Rachna. The goons revved the bike but Vidya kept pulling them back, throwing them off balance. "One of them pulled out a pistol and started firing," said Rachna. Vidya staggered back after being shot and the trio jumped on the bike and fled with the necklace.

 

But Vidya wouldn’t give up and ran after them, doubled over and trying to stem the blood flow with both her hands, said a neighbour Amalesh Yadav. "She chased the snatchers to a lane adjoining the field but then collapsed," said Yadav. He saw the police pick three bullet casings from the spot. Rachna and Prerna ran over to their mother, weeping and trying to pull her up. Rachna seemed horrified but gathered enough nerve to run home to call her father, Rama Rao Desai. "When I reached, she was bleeding profusely. I took her to the Ramakrishna Mission Hospital," Desai said. "I am shocked. The bullets could have killed my wife or daughters."