A 16-year-old girl, who was allegedly kidnapped in December 2017, sold, forced into marriage and raped by a 40-year-old man, was rescued by Delhi Commission of Woman (DCW) from Jhunjhunu district in Rajasthan. She is reportedly nine-months pregnant.
The Commission disclosed that they received a complaint from the minor's father who stated that his daughter was kidnapped and trafficked from Rourkela, Orissa.
The father of the victim, a Government officer in Railways, told DCW then he had lodged an FIR immediately after she went missing but police were unable to trace her. Subsequently 10 days later, he found out that his daughter was trafficked for Rs 4 lakh and sent to Rajasthan where she was forcefully married to a 40-year-old man.
His daughter was recovered by Rajasthan Police a few weeks after she went missing. She revealed that when her father was at work, two relatives kidnapped her and forcefully married her off. Subsequently, she was taken to the Child Welfare Committee in Rourkela before being handed over to her father. However, the victim's father claimed that Orissa Police forcefully took custody of the victim and sent her back to Rajasthan.
“The bewildered and traumatised father wrote several letters to various authorities in Orissa and Rajasthan for over a year, but to no avail. Finally, the distraught father approached the Delhi Commission for Women on 24 January 2019 where his complaint was forwarded to the Anti Human Trafficking Cell (AHTC) of the Commission headed by member Kiran Negi and managed to rescue the minor who is nine-months pregnant,” they said.
“The connivance of the Orissa Police in the matter is absolutely shameful. The girl is not from Delhi and nor did the incident occur here. But seeing the helplessness of the father who had appealed to all possible authorities in Orissa, we decided to intervene in the matter on humanitarian grounds. While we were able to rescue the girl, we fail to understand how the Rajasthan and Orissa police failed to do so. I appeal to Orissa authorities to ensure strictest punishment to the concerned police officers in the matter,” DCW Chairperson Swati Maliwal said.