NEW DELHI, Mar 02: A 27-year-old woman, allegedly involved in human trafficking, has been arrested for luring innocent girls from rural areas of the northeast on the pretext of providing jobs here, police said today.
Keballina M Sangma alias Kevi Manda was arrested from Manali, Himachal Pradesh on February 21, following a long chase by the team that traversed Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh, said Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police (Crime).
A reward of Rs 50,000 had been declared for her arrest, he said.
The woman is suspected to be member of a gang that is involved in human trafficking of girls for sexual exploitation.
They targeted girls, who were living separately from their parents and needed money to sustain themselves, he said.
Last year on July 25, a girl belonging to a rural area in Meghalaya, was brought to Guwahati from her village by Radhika Marak alias Chesama on the pretext of arranging a lucrative job for her.
The girl had lost her mother and her father had married another woman, thereby deserting his daughter, said another officer.
The victim was handed over to Manda for Rs 10,000 in Guwahati with the assurance that the latter had good relations with big beauty parlours and would soon get her a good job, said the officer.
Manda brought the girl to Delhi by telling her the capital has good beauty parlours and she could earn Rs 25,000-30,000 a month here.
The victim was kept in a flat in the congested area of south Delhi’s Kotla Mubarakpur area and was then handed over to a man called Nikhil
who attempted to force her into trafficking. “He also forced her to wear short clothes and took her photographs, which were sent to some other person. When she refused to indulge in prostitution, she was beaten and threatened,” said Yadav.
Nikhil is allegedly running the prostitution racket here and a reward of Rs 50,000 has been declared for his arrest, police said. The girl managed to run away and approached police with the help of an NGO last year on August 6 and a case was registered. The flat where the victim was kept was traced but the accused persons had become suspicious after the victim’s escape and fled, he said.
The addresses given by the accused persons on tenant verification form and in documents submitted for subscription of mobile numbers were found to be fake, said the officer. One of the alleged traffickers, Chesama, was traced and apprehended from her house in Guwahati on August 15 last year and is in judicial custody.
During investigation, it was revealed that a gang of Nepali goons are running prostitution rackets in south Delhi and Gurugram.
On getting specific information about Kevi’s location, a team was sent to Guwahati but she went underground and could not be traced.
On the basis of an input, a team was constituted under ACP Sandeep Lamba and supervision of DCP (Crime) Rajesh Deo, and it proceeded to Manali, Himachal Pradesh.
Kevi was held from the Hadimba Devi Temple area of Manali.
She was living in a house in Manali on a rent of Rs 2,500 with a friend who is also involved in the same trade there. PTI