Sukanya project participants to represent India in kickboxing World Cup

Sukanya was initiated in 2014 by the Kolkata Police in collaboration with Women Development and Social Welfare department. On Friday, 2,500 girls, who underwent training on self defence in the third year of the project, received their certificates.

Dr Sashi Panja, the state women development and social welfare minister, and Rajeev Kumar, Commissioner of Kolkata Police, were present in the programme. Dr Panja said that girls getting training of self defence could use their talent not only for their own protection but of others as well.

Kumar announced that students who complete their training under the project Sukanya would be getting advantage if they apply for a job in the Kolkata Police. The Kolkata Police Recruitment Board have also been requested to give priority to job aspirants who undergoes the training successfully.

The five students who have been selected to represent India in the Kick Boxing World Cup are from four schools and one college in the city. Priya Das, a first year student of Behala College, Class X student Sahisnuta Sinha of Brahmo Balika Shikshalaya, Anushka Nath of Taki Government Girls’ High School, Dipanita Roy of Surah Kanya Vidyalaya and Alisha Khan of St Thomas’ Girls’ School were 

felicitated for success in Friday’s programme.

Most of them had won gold in both the state level and national level championships. Subsequently they were selected to represent the country in the World Cup for which they will be flying to Russia on September 20 along with their coach Mantu Das.

Sahisnuta said that they practised at least four to five hours a day. They go to New Alipore for practice from 6 am in the morning and continue till 9 am. Then they need to leave for their schools and again they practice kickboxing for a couple of hours in evening.

All of them appreciated the move of the state government for taking initiative to provide self defence training to girl school goers as it helped them to find a way for a bright future. “I want to build my career in kickboxing. I want to be a trainer in future,” said Dipanita, who had won two gold medals in the national championships.

Four of the selected girls had initiated their training in kickboxing in 2014 only after the project Sukanya was introduced in their schools while one of them joined the programme in its third year.

Their trainer Mantu Das said: “We have finally got success after a tough fight of the past three years. Now our target is to make our country proud in the World Cup.”

The project had started with only 646 students in some schools in the city. The number had gone up to 2,248 in the second year and in the third year some students from some colleges have joined the programme besides the school goers which took the number of participants to 2,500.