INDORE: Panic struck a garba practice session in Mandsaur on Saturday night when a woman was abducted at gunpoint in full public view. Swift police action led to her rescue near Shamgarh, about 80 km away.
The incident occurred around 10 pm at Bhawsar Dharamshala in Khanpura, where women and girls had gathered for festival rehearsals. According to police, four men and two women stormed the venue, seized a participant, and began dragging her away. One youth who tried to resist was pushed aside and assaulted. The group, one of them brandishing a country-made pistol, forced the victim through nearby lanes into a vehicle.
Police immediately set up citywide barricades. Four teams from Kotwali police station, led by station in-charge Pushpendra Singh Rathore, pursued the suspects and, with Shamgarh police, intercepted them to rescue the woman.
Investigations revealed the victim, a resident of Garoth area, had left her husband three months ago over his alcoholism and violent behaviour. Since then, she had been living in Mandsaur with a man named Yash in a live-in relationship—an arrangement strongly opposed by her family.
Her relatives, unhappy with her decision, carried out the abduction. Police later confirmed that family members were among those detained.
Mandsaur SP Vinod Kumar Meena praised the swift coordination that foiled the attempt and ensured the woman’s safety.
