Speech-impaired teen writes her story to help cops nail rapists, traffickers | Latest News Delhi - Hindustan Times
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Speech-impaired teen writes her story to help cops nail rapists, traffickers

Hindustan Times | By, Ghaziabad
Jul 21, 2017 07:46 AM IST

The anti-human trafficking unit of the Ghaziabad police has rescued a 19-year-old speech-impaired girl who was allegedly sold and raped repeatedly by several men over at least five years in different cities of UP. The girl’s parents, natives of West Bengal, had moved to Saharanpur in search of work.

The anti-human trafficking unit of the Ghaziabad police has rescued a 19-year-old speech-impaired girl who was allegedly sold and raped repeatedly by several men over at least five years in different cities of Uttar Pradesh.

The girl’s parents had come to Saharanpur from West Bengal in search of work. Five years ago, when they died the girl started working as a domestic help. Her employer raped her and sold her to two men in Ghaziabad who gang-raped her and sold her again.(Representative photo)
The girl’s parents had come to Saharanpur from West Bengal in search of work. Five years ago, when they died the girl started working as a domestic help. Her employer raped her and sold her to two men in Ghaziabad who gang-raped her and sold her again.(Representative photo)

The girl’s parents, natives of West Bengal, had moved to Saharanpur in search of work and started working at a local factory, police said. However, both of them died due to health problems and the girl, then 14 years of age, had to work as a help in the house of one Furkan.

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The police are trying to ascertain the exact sequence of events and the time frame in which the incidents took place.

Despite her disability, the girl who is a Class 8 dropout has shared all the details that she remembered by giving it in writing such as how she landed in Furkan’s house to a chain of middlemen and how she was sold and sexually assaulted repeatedly.

Ghaziabad District Magistrate Ministhy S is now personally monitoring the case and it was on her directions that the police expedited the legal proceedings and lodged an FIR under sections of illegal confinement, rape, gang-rape and provisions of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act against the accused persons.

“Furkan used to rape the girl, then a minor, when she worked at his house in Saharanpur. Later, he and his wife roped in Akshay and they sold her to Mehdi Hasan and Saad Malik of Ghaziabad. As per the victim, Akshay, Hasan and Malik also raped her before selling her to Anil Kashyap in Murad Nagar,” said Priyanjali Mishra, counsellor at government’s ‘Asha Jyoti Kendra’. Mishra is counselling the victim.

Kashyap also allegedly raped her and forced her to marry him. The girl, however, denied any formal marriage.

On June 1, the women helpline of Saharanpur police got a call about the girl. After initial probe into the complaint, the Saharanpur police alerted their Ghaziabad counterparts and a major operation was launched to trace the girl. Based on inputs by their informers and extensive interviews of people where the girl lived over all these years, the police on July 11 traced the girl to Kashyap’s house.

“When our teams rescued her from Murad Nagar, Kashyap claimed that she was married to her. However, all he had as proof was a piece of paper with the signature of the girl. In fact, the witnesses were Akshay, Malik and Hasan, who had sold her to Kashyap,” said Chandramohan Srivastava, district probation officer.

The officials suspect there could be a bigger anti-human trafficking racket at play.

“I am monitoring the case and recommended booking the accused under Goonda Act and Gangster Act, besides invoking the relevant sections of the law. Some sections of the Human Trafficking Act are yet to be added. I will speak to the SSP to add more sections to the case. The young woman is now rescued and we are working for her rehabilitation,” the DM said.

“We will also be holding meetings with RWAs and officials soon to chalk out a strategy to help girls who work as domestic helps through agencies and face harassment and exploitation. Many of them commit suicide and their cases are closed without proper investigation,” she said.

Police officials also indicated the accused may also be booked under POCSO as the girl was a minor when she was raped and sold the first time.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Peeyush Khandelwal writes on a range of issues in western Uttar Pradesh – from crime, to development authorities and from infrastructure to transport. Based in Ghaziabad, he has been a journalist for almost a decade.

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