New Delhi, April 13: Bengal teenager Yasmin Khatun, rescued in December from a child trafficking gang in Delhi, fled last night from a state-run welfare home near Calcutta where she had been kept on court orders.

However, the 16-year-old Yasmin (name changed) was found six hours later, along with a roommate with whom she had escaped, by villagers who grew suspicious about their movements and informed the cops, said P. Nirajnayan, inspector-general of the CID.

Yasmin claimed before CID officers today that she was being “tortured” in the Narendrapur shelter. “She said she was being tortured by some employees (of the home). An investigation is on to check the veracity of the claim,” an officer said.

Yasmin and her roommate — a teenager who was saved by the police after she was brought from Bangladesh by a trafficking gang — were asking villagers about the way to Howrah station, the CID officer said.

“They were running and gasping. The villagers grew suspicious when they did not disclose their names and address. After 15 minutes, the residents informed the local police station and the girls were brought to the home around 12.45am (on Wednesday),” said the officer. The girls had escaped around 7.30pm on Tuesday.

Before they were found around 10km from the home, a CID team had rushed to the local Sonarpur police station to lodge a missing complaint. But the cops there allegedly refused to co-operate.

“The officers in the police station misbehaved with our officers, led by a woman inspector, and refused to lodge the complaint. They did not even bother to alert the patrol van in the area,” the CID officer said.

This prompted the CID team to suspect that the Sonarpur officers were trying to shield the staff of the welfare home, which is guarded by a private security agency.

Calcutta High Court had ordered that Yasmin be kept at a welfare home at the government’s expense after she refused to return to her family in South 24-Parganas’ Kakdwip.