MUMBAI: A 17-year-old girl from West Bengal, who had been ‘trafficked’ to the city with false promises of meeting actor Shah Rukh Khan at his Bandra bungalow Mannat, was rescued from Dadar Terminus by alert railway policemen recently. The Class XII student had met the accused, who posed as an event manager, on social media. West Bengal police came to Mumbai on Tuesday to pick up the trafficker and take the girl back home to her parents.
The teenager lives with her family in Palashipara, 150 km from Kolkata. The accused, Subhan Shaikh, 43, is a Mira Road resident. Police said he befriended the victim on Facebook by posing as a youngster and putting up his son’s image as his display picture. After the two started to converse regularly, he lured her with the promise of meeting the superstar.
Shaikh knew the girl would not join him once she found out he was not the youngster she had been chatting with. So just a few days before they met, Shaikh sent the girl a message saying he was down with Covid and his father would be accompanying her to Mumbai. Hence, when an older person landed up in Palashipara on July 15, the girl did not sense anything amiss. “He picked her up from her coaching class, destroyed her Sim card to prevent her location from being tracked and brought her to Kolkata, where they boarded the Howrah Mail to Mumbai,” said senior inspector Dnyaneshwar Katkar, Dadar GRP. Meanwhile, after the girl’s parents approached the police, an alert was sent to all railway stations. The CCTV footage at Howrah Junction had captured the girl and the images were immediately sent to the Mumbai GRP as the train terminates at CSMT.
“The girl was wearing a mask so we couldn’t see her face. Based on her description, our team intercepted her and Shaikh on Sunday. When she took off the mask, we were able to verify her identity,” said inspector Avinash Powar, Dadar GRP. The girl was sent to a shelter for children. “We suspect the girl was trafficked to Mumbai by Shaikh. He wouldn’t tell us what he intended to do. We visited his home and found he comes from a decent background,” said Katkar.
