Delhi: 17 helps rescued from abuse are on their way home

Delhi Police Sunday arrested a 42-year-old woman, the alleged kingpin of the placement agency racket, which trapped the 15-year-old girl and placed her as domestic help at a house in Faridabad

Three months after being rescued from her employer’s house, a 15-year-old girl finally had a smile on her face as she got ready to board a train to her Jharkhand village.

All the 17 girls were rescued from various parts of Delhi-NCR including Faridabad, Paschim Vihar, Shakarpur and Vikaspuri, among others. (HT Representative Photo)

Severely infected, stabbed, beaten up with rods, confined, sexually harassed and forced to work as a domestic help without any wages, the minor girl who is still in trauma, had waited for as long as four years for her ordeal to end. She is one of the 17 girls who were trafficked and rescued over the past six months from Delhi-NCR. All of them left for home on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police Sunday arrested a 42-year-old woman, the alleged kingpin of the placement agency racket, which trapped the 15-year-old girl and placed her as domestic help at a house in Faridabad. The woman and her husband reportedly ran their operation from west Delhi’s Punjabi Bagh.

Once home, the 15-year-old said she wants to go back to school and get a real job eventually. “I can’t believe that it’s over and that I’m going back to my village. I haven’t seen or heard from my family since I was brought to the city around four years ago by a man who promised me a nice job and a place to live. It was a horror being trapped. I want to go back to school again,” she said, hurriedly finishing her lunch at the railway station.

She was stabbed by a knife on her neck and back following which she developed a severe infection in her bones — it took three months to heal, she said.

“The employer and their men would use different objects, including iron rods and wooden sticks, to beat me up. I just want to go home and meet my sister and brother,” the girl said.

The child welfare committee (CWC) of Faridabad, in its report filed on January 28 this year, stated, “The girl has been found in a miserable condition suffering a severe infection in her back and neck. The girl has been gang-raped on several occasions and beaten up with iron rods. She needs immediate medical care.”

B K Goel, member, state protection child rights (SPCR), Haryana, said it was one of the most heinous cases but the girl was brave enough to survive.

“She had jumped a floor and escaped from her employer’s house in Faridabad. She was trafficked, sexually harassed and tortured. In Delhi, she underwent two major surgeries,” Goel said, adding that three persons were arrested and 12 girls were rescued after her case came to light.

The Faridabad police have since established a dedicated police station for dealing with trafficking and missing reports.

All the 17 girls were rescued from various parts of Delhi-NCR including Faridabad, Paschim Vihar, Shakarpur and Vikaspuri, among others. The rescues were made by district police along with the help of Shakti Vahini, an NGO that rescues trafficking victims.

“The Delhi government is yet to enact a law that makes registration of placement agencies mandatory. Also, the residents need to understand the importance of police verification. The traffickers would get the girls from interior villages and place them here forcefully,” said Rishi Kant, who heads Shakti Vahini.