Krishnagar, Oct. 4: When Mantu Biswas, a rickshaw-puller in Nadia’s Taldaha village, saw a girl limping towards the Bangladesh border yesterday morning, he knew something was wrong.

“I was surprised to see the little girl trudging towards the border. Being a rickshaw-puller, I knew she did not belong to the area. I know everybody here,” Mantu, 35, said.

He asked the girl who she was and 13-year-old Banita Biswas broke down. Her cheap plastic slippers couldn’t carry her any longer, and with a swollen left foot, she found it difficult to even stand.

The girl said she had run away from her home in North 24-Parganas’ Bongaon on Saturday after her widowed mother told her she couldn’t afford new clothes for her this Puja.

Banita’s mother Namita works as a domestic help and earns about Rs 500 a month. Her father Subal, a fish-seller, died last year in a road accident.

Clad in a red salwar-kameez and clutching a small bag, Banita changed a couple of trains to reach Taraknagar, near Taldaha, about 130 km from Calcutta. She did not, however, have any clear idea about where she was heading.

“I waited all year for a set of new clothes. But my mother told me that she did not have the money. So I decided I would leave home and go far away from my family. No one loves me,” the Class VI student told the rickshaw-puller.

Banita said she had got the idea from her elder brother’s wife, who had fled their home and gone to her parents when her husband Tarak could not buy her a new sari. Earning around Rs 700 a month, Tarak, a small-time fish-seller, struggles to make ends meet.

After listening to her story, Mantu took Banita to his house. The rickshaw-puller, who earns about Rs 50 a day, took her to a doctor and also treated her to a sumptuous meal.

He then went to the Taldaha panchayat chief, Bikash Biswas. With panchayat member Ratan Biswas, they decided to contact the Krishnagunj police station.

As the word spread, Taldaha residents — many of them poor themselves — collected money to buy new clothes for Banita, though a little late for Puja. “We bought her two salwar-kameez sets. A doctor treated her feet. Happy, she gave us her address,” Bikash said.