Days after the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) rescued 16 women from the clutches of international sex trafficking in Munirka, 39 Nepali women from a hotel in Paharganj, Delhi were saved from the same fate on Tuesday, 31 July.
In a joint operation, the Varanasi Crime Branch and the Delhi Police on Tuesday raided a hotel, where the women were confined for the past few days and were soon going to be trafficked to Gulf countries.
They have detained three men for interrogation in this regard.
Delhi Commission For Women chief Swati Maliwal said the women would be transferred to shelter homes and the Nepal embassy was being contacted for their repatriation.
She said 68 passports were recovered from the place where the women were kept, out of which seven were Indian passports.
The Nepali women were lured with the promise of jobs and were first brought to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, the police official told PTI.
Two Nepalese women managed to escape from the clutches of the traffickers in the first week of July. They told the police in Nepal about the racket, who in turn contacted the Nepal embassy.
Based on the embassy's communique, the Varanasi police raided half-a-dozen locations in the temple town last week. They arrested a man identified as Jai Singh under the Shivpur police station limits.
During interrogation, Singh said a group of Nepali women were going to be trafficked to the middle-east. Based on the inputs of the two freed women and Singh's statement, the Varanasi Crime Branch undertook the operation with the Delhi Police.
The rescued women told the DCW chief that they belong to earthquake affected regions of Nepal.
They informed that they are very poor and belong from the earthquake affected regions of Nepal. Most of them have lost their homes and families in the earthquake. They belong to the age group of 18 to 30 years.The DCW said in a statement
"Delhi has become a hub of human trafficking. The DCW finds out about these rackets, police of other states finds them out but the Delhi Police continues to sleep," Maliwal said.
Kejriwal Alleges “Collusion at the Top”
Responding to the news, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that it further proved the “complete breakdown of law and order” in the Capital.
Adding to this, he said, that incidents such as these could be countered to a certain extent, if the police gave the license for CCTV cameras at places such as these, as it would “expose” such crimes.
However, he said that the police would “never” comply to do so.
(With inputs from PTI)
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