Rajnandgaon, May 5: Padma Shri recipient social worker Phoolbasan Bai Yadav was rescued during an alleged abduction attempt in Chhattisgarh’s Rajnandgaon district on Tuesday morning and three persons including two women were detained, officials said.
Khushbu Sahu, a native of Bemetara, visited Yadav at her Sukuldaihan village at around 10.30 am and allegedly told her that a differently-abled woman seated in a car outside wanted to take a selfie with her, said a police official.
When Yadav walked out and got in the car, it sped away. The accused allegedly tied her hands and gagged her with a cloth.
As luck would have it, a traffic police team conducting routine vehicle checking stopped the car near Chikhli police outpost on Rajnandgaon-Khairagarh road.
The accused told the policemen that the woman with her hands tied and mouth gagged was an epilepsy patient, but one of the personnel recognised Yadav and rescued her.
The three accused — Sahu, another woman and the male car driver — were taken to Sukuldaihan police outpost. They were being questioned, said Rajnandgaon City Superintendent of Police (CSP) Alexander Kiro.
As per the preliminary investigation, Sahu, the main accused, is associated with a self-help group (SHG) and had been in contact with Yadav for the past four months. It is suspected that SHGs in Bemetara region were being mobilised in the name of employment training and money was being collected illegally, the CSP said.
The motive behind the abduction will be clear after further investigation, he added.
Phoolbasan Bai Yadav received the Padma Shri in 2012 for her work in the SHG movement.
Yadav started forming self-help groups in 2001, encouraging women to adopt the habit of saving small amounts of money as per their capability. Now, her network includes nearly two lakh women, engaged in social service and empowerment initiatives, as well as activities such as water and environmental conservation and organic farming. She has received several other prestigious honours.
