RAIPUR: A Sold by one she trusted, held captive and raped for five years by the ‘buyer’ and his father, a trafficked woman managed to escape with the help of her father and is now back home in Chhattisgarh.
Trafficked as a minor, she is now a 21-year-old mother of a toddler. The survivor’s female cousin, who sold her off to a man in Haryana for Rs 2 lakh, has been arrested but the father and son who raped her repeatedly are yet to be caught.
Speaking to TOI, Kabirdham SP Abhishek Pallava said, “Based on the survivor’s statement, an FIR was lodged for trafficking, rape and criminal intimidation under IPC against her cousin and the two accused.Police have arrested the cousin and a team of cops will be sent to Haryana to nab the two others.”
Since the crime took place when she was a minor, additional sections under Pocso Act would be imposed, said the police.
A native of Kabirdham district, the minor was looking for work as a 16-year-old to supplement her family’s earnings when her maternal uncle’s 32-year-old daughter, who lived in Madhya Pradesh then, got her hooked with stories of how she could work in Delhi and get paid well.
She persuaded the minor to accompany her to Delhi in December 2018. She was put to work as a domestic at a doctor’s house but the strenuous life and loneliness broke her resolve and she told her cousin that she wanted to return home, she told police.
Her cousin instead sold her to a 30-year-old in Rohtak, Haryana, for Rs 2 lakh, she says. She had no clue she had been sold until she was in the man’s grip. She was forced to perform wedding rituals at a temple.
Hell broke loose upon her after the sham wedding as both the man and his father would rape her anytime of the day, she has said in her statement. She was made to work like a slave and tortured.
She quietly decided to make a plan to escape. After delivering a baby boy, she acted as if she had accepted the “life of hell” and gradually persuaded the father-son to let her speak with her family members. They eventually agreed but let her talk only in their presence.
She went along, knowing that they would let down their guard some time or the other. One day in early October, she got her chance and told her father about her escape plan.
Her ‘husband’ and his father are contractors for construction companies and were struggling to get manpower. The survivor told them that there are labourers in abundance in her village and they could accompany her there to fix rates and get workers in bulk.
The man agreed to travel to her village in November with her and the child. It was only when they reached the village that he realized he had been tricked. He tried to fight with the survivor’s parents, who retaliated and drove him out.
He went back, fuming, but managed to take the child away. He returned with his father and the duo again tried to take the woman back, leading to another fight, which they lost. Undeterred, they even approached local police with false statements but could make no headway and returned. They had to hand over the two-year-old boy to his mother.
Since assembly elections were going on at the time, the matter wasn’t investigated thoroughly until the woman narrated her ordeal in detail to the police.
Reporting of human trafficking cases had dropped in the past few years in Chhattisgarh, indicating a change in pattern of shifting girls and women to other states. Many of them don’t return to tell their tales, others prefer to suffer silently, one such survivor said.
Trafficked as a minor, she is now a 21-year-old mother of a toddler. The survivor’s female cousin, who sold her off to a man in Haryana for Rs 2 lakh, has been arrested but the father and son who raped her repeatedly are yet to be caught.
Speaking to TOI, Kabirdham SP Abhishek Pallava said, “Based on the survivor’s statement, an FIR was lodged for trafficking, rape and criminal intimidation under IPC against her cousin and the two accused.Police have arrested the cousin and a team of cops will be sent to Haryana to nab the two others.”
Since the crime took place when she was a minor, additional sections under Pocso Act would be imposed, said the police.
A native of Kabirdham district, the minor was looking for work as a 16-year-old to supplement her family’s earnings when her maternal uncle’s 32-year-old daughter, who lived in Madhya Pradesh then, got her hooked with stories of how she could work in Delhi and get paid well.
She persuaded the minor to accompany her to Delhi in December 2018. She was put to work as a domestic at a doctor’s house but the strenuous life and loneliness broke her resolve and she told her cousin that she wanted to return home, she told police.
Her cousin instead sold her to a 30-year-old in Rohtak, Haryana, for Rs 2 lakh, she says. She had no clue she had been sold until she was in the man’s grip. She was forced to perform wedding rituals at a temple.
Hell broke loose upon her after the sham wedding as both the man and his father would rape her anytime of the day, she has said in her statement. She was made to work like a slave and tortured.
She quietly decided to make a plan to escape. After delivering a baby boy, she acted as if she had accepted the “life of hell” and gradually persuaded the father-son to let her speak with her family members. They eventually agreed but let her talk only in their presence.
She went along, knowing that they would let down their guard some time or the other. One day in early October, she got her chance and told her father about her escape plan.
Her ‘husband’ and his father are contractors for construction companies and were struggling to get manpower. The survivor told them that there are labourers in abundance in her village and they could accompany her there to fix rates and get workers in bulk.
The man agreed to travel to her village in November with her and the child. It was only when they reached the village that he realized he had been tricked. He tried to fight with the survivor’s parents, who retaliated and drove him out.
He went back, fuming, but managed to take the child away. He returned with his father and the duo again tried to take the woman back, leading to another fight, which they lost. Undeterred, they even approached local police with false statements but could make no headway and returned. They had to hand over the two-year-old boy to his mother.
Since assembly elections were going on at the time, the matter wasn’t investigated thoroughly until the woman narrated her ordeal in detail to the police.
Reporting of human trafficking cases had dropped in the past few years in Chhattisgarh, indicating a change in pattern of shifting girls and women to other states. Many of them don’t return to tell their tales, others prefer to suffer silently, one such survivor said.