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Raipur/Chhattisgarh: In yet another distressing incident, a Chhattisgarh tribal woman returned home after five years of captivity, forced marriage and repeated rape by ‘husband and his father’, when she was sold off as a minor for Rs 2 lakh by her cousin sister to a 30-year-old man in Haryana. Chhattisgarh police have arrested the survivor’s cousin sister under sections of human trafficking.
Trafficked as the age of 16, 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 taken into custody but the father and son who raped her repeatedly are at large.
The man forcibly married her and he and his father would rape her repeatedly for nearly five years and she now has a two-year-old son.
The survivor narrated her ordeal in her statement to police said that she was subjected to mental and physical torture, would work like a slave and was prohibited to talk to her parents over phone only in their presence for a limited time. This went on for years until she managed to hatch a plan with her father over a secret call to return home.
Resident of Kukdoor village in Kabirdham district, the minor was looking for a job for her livelihood when her maternal uncle’s daughter, 32, from Madhya Pradesh persuaded her to goto Delhi with her and get settled with some work.
The minor agreed to go with her in December 2018 and was engaged with household work at a doctor’s house. After sometime, she told her cousin she wants to return but the minor was in stead handed over to one Sunny Surya, 30, of Rohtak in Haryana, for Rs 2 lakh.
After being taken into custody, the minor was informed that she had been sold to Sunny for marriage and was forced to undergo marriage rituals at a temple in a private function. A mountain of sorrows fell upon her when both Sunny and her father Bhagwan raped her at any time of the day.
Each day was a living hell, she said in her statement. Later, after delivering a baby boy, she acted as if she had accepted that life and the duo accused allowed her to speak to her family members, only in their presence.
Stealing some secret time, she spoke to her father early this October and they found a way she could return home.
Accused Sunny and Bhagwan worked as contractors for construction companies and were struggling for manpower and labourers when the survivor told them about labourers available in abundance in her village and they could accompany her there, to fix a rate and get labourers in bulk.
Sunny agreed to travel to Kukdoor in November with her and the kid and after two days, he understood the matter. He fought with survivor’s parents who retaliated well for safety of their daughter. Fuming, Sunny went back taking the kid along and returned with his father and indulged in another round of fight. Recently, they also tried to approach local police giving misleading statements about the woman’s parents but the matter subsided in counselling and the duo returned.
Amidst assembly elections going on, the matter wasn’t investigated thoroughly until the woman narrated her ordeal in detail to the police.
Speaking to sources, Kabirdham SP Abhishek Pallava said, “Based on survivor’s statement, an FIR was lodged under sections for trafficking, rape, criminal intimidation under IPC against woman’s cousin sister and the two accused. Police have arrested the cousin and a team of cops will be sent to Haryana to nab the two others.”
Police said that as the incident took place when the survivor was a minor, additional sections would be imposed under POCSO Act after investigations.
The reporting of human trafficking cases in the state has decreased over the years indicating a change in the pattern of migration of girls and women to other states. Many of them do not come back to tell their stories, others prefer to rehabilitate on their own when they cannot find the courage to face the “trial”, said one such survivor.
