12-year-old girl kidnapped, tortured and forced into prostitution rescued by police; 4 held

A 12-year-old girl who was kidnapped from south-west Delhi in January, burnt with cigarette butts, forced into prostitution, and raped by several men, was rescued by the Delhi Police on Tuesday

A 12-year-old girl who was kidnapped from south-west Delhi in January, burnt with cigarette butts, forced into prostitution, and raped by several men, was rescued by the Delhi Police on Tuesday.

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Police also arrested two men, Sanjay Rajput and Anshu Sharma, and two women, Sapna Goyal and Kanika Roy, who allegedly kidnapped and forced the girl into prostitution.

Police said there could be a wider prostitution racket run by the four persons ,who operated through WhatsApp groups and had clients across the country.

The police are now probing the racketeers to know if they had kidnapped other children and forced them into the sex trade. The identities of the men, who allegedly raped the minor girl, are also being ascertained as it appears that some of the men knew that the girl was a minor and that she had been forced into prostitution.

According to the police, the child lived with her mother in south-west Delhi’s Kapashera. Police said her father had died and she was an only child. Her mother reported her missing on January 21 after which a kidnapping case was registered at Kapashera police station.

The police probe has now revealed that the girl was kidnapped when she went out to buy chips from a local shop. The four kidnappers -- two of them from her own neighbourhood -- took her to a nearby house on the pretext of offering her a piece of a birthday cake.

The cake, however, was spiked and the girl fell unconscious after eating it, said Urvija Goel, deputy commissioner of police (west).

Thereafter, to force the girl into prostitution, they tortured her and offered her pills and drugs, the details of which are yet to be ascertained, the DCP said.

“There were cigarette burns on her arms. She was forced to drink alcohol,” said another investigator who did not want to be identified.

Once the girl was not in a position to resist, she was pushed into prostitution and raped by men in Delhi and Bihar. “There are text messages to reveal that some men looking for young women were offered the child and informed that she was a minor,” said the unnamed investigator quoted above.

The prostitution gang dealt with their customers through WhatsApp. “There were over 150 WhatsApp groups of this racket and had a thousand customers from across India,” Goel said.

Police said a team from Rajouri Garden police station in west Delhi was trying to trace some missing children when this girl’s name cropped up. Sometime last month, the police team got in touch with the girl’s mother and realised that the girl was kidnapped by traffickers.

“About a month after her disappearance, the kidnappers allowed the girl to make a 30 second phone call to her mother. Her mother wasn’t told about her location,” said a second investigator, who did not want to be identified.

A subsequent phone call followed in which the kidnappers urged the mother not to pursue the girl’s disappearance any further. Police said the kidnappers were worried that the police would track them. “They offered her any amount she wanted. But we were in touch with the mother and she only demanded that her daughter be returned to her,” the officer said.

Eventually, the police used the communication between the mother and the kidnappers to pursue an online trail left by the suspects. The police traced the girl to Majnu ka Tilla in North Delhi on Tuesday from where she was rescued and her captors arrested.

Last year, on average, eight cases of kidnapping of women and children, six incidents of molestation and over four rapes were reported daily in Delhi. There were also 65 cases registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. However, according to Delhi Police data, all crimes under these particular heads, were considerably lower than in 2019.

Chinmoy Biswal, Delhi Police spokesperson, said local police as well as the crime branch, have been pursuing prostitution rackets, particularly those suspected of trafficking women and minor girls. “We also take every missing complaint related to children very seriously. Even this child was traced due to our constant efforts to trace all missing children,” he said.

The officer said anyone suspecting the trafficking or abuse of any child must immediately call the police control room on 112. “The aim should be to bring such crimes to the notice of the police immediately,” Biswal said.