Hour later, she was gone

There are many instances of domestic helps turning out to be innocuous thugs. But the ones that involve threat to a family member are the most disconcerting.

Name: Aadesh Gupta (40)
Occupation: Government Employee
Swindled of: Rs 10,000

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There are many instances of domestic helps turning out to be innocuous thugs. But the ones that involve threat to a family member are the most disconcerting. Meet the Guptas of HUDCO Place, South Delhi. They incurred a loss of Rs 10,000 and also lost the domestic help they had hired.

But it’s not the loss of money that haunts them. They are thanking their stars their younger daughter Ananya (5) is safe. “She (the maid) took our daughter out with her on the pretext of going to the market to buy some things. But left my daughter outside our house and fled,” Aadesh Gupta said.

Their quest for a full-time domestic help started with an advertisement they read in an English daily.

“We wanted to get a domestic help to take care of our children and do some household chores. After seeing an advertisement in the newspaper, I called up this domestic help agent."

The agent promised to provide a full-time help for Rs 2, 000.

“Three hours later, he was at our doorstep.” Aadesh gave him the money.

“Claiming to get the necessary paperwork done, he left and left the girl behind. She sat around in the house for sometime. But an hour and a half later, she suddenly said she must go to the market to buy some things. We offered to buy what she needed, but she insisted on going herself.”

She said she would take our youngest daughter along. “We did not see any problem in that. But later we saw our daughter standing outside the house, alone. The agent’s phone was switched off. Next day I went to the Prahladpur address given by the agent only to find that no such agency existed there.”