Bangladeshi girl raped 223 times in 90 days in India

A Bangladeshi girl who was trafficked to India has been raped at least 223 times in three months. This shocking information has come to light in a BBC Bangla report.

Abraham Mathai, founder president of the Maharashtra-based voluntary organization 'Harmony Foundation', said that the 12-year-old girl, a resident of Khulna, Bangladesh, was trafficked to India. The traffickers, the girl said, forced her to have sex by force and torture. This inhuman torture was inflicted on her in the Mira-Bhayander areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra.

 “I could see the terror in her eyes when she told me that 223 men had raped her in the last three months,” Mathai said.

Another NGO, Exodus Road India Foundation, and the police’s anti-human trafficking unit rescued the girl on July 23 from Naigaon in Maharashtra’s Palghar district.

The girl had been given hormone injections to artificially enhance her physique.

Mira-Bhayander-Vasay-Vira Police Commissioner Niket Kaushik told the Press Trust of India (PTI) that nine people have been arrested so far. Four men and two women are Bangladeshi nationals. The police are trying to catch the entire trafficking ring.

Last week, another Bangladeshi girl approached the local police station in Hyderabad, Telangana, seeking help. The 15-year-old girl, a resident of Dhaka, alleged that her neighbour had brought her to India and forced her into prostitution.

 Hyderabad police have uncovered an international sex trafficking ring after receiving information from the girl.

The Bangladeshi girl who was rescued from Palghar in Maharashtra lives in Amirpur, Khulna. The officials of the voluntary organization have not yet been able to contact her family.

Abraham Mathai, president of the Harmony Foundation, told BBC Bangla, “After talking to the girl, I came to know that she had failed in a subject in her school exams. She ran away from home fearing that her parents would scold her.”

“A woman she knew lured the girl across the border to Kolkata by promising her a job. There, a fake Indian identity card was made for her and then she was put on a plane and brought to Mumbai.”

When the Mira-Bhayander-Vasai-Vira police’s anti-human trafficking unit went to search for a Bangladeshi girl, Shyam Kumble of the Exodus Road India Foundation was with them after receiving information that a Bangladeshi girl had been trafficked.

 He was saying, “She was taken from Mumbai to Nadiad in Gujarat. There, a man injected the girl with artificial body enhancement, raped her and recorded the video. They forced her to have sex under the threat of spreading the video.”

“After talking to the traffickers who have been caught, and the girl herself, we have come to know that 223 men raped her in the last three months. The girl was taken to four hotels and five different farmhouses in Gujarat. Then she was brought to Maharashtra,” Kumble added.

After being rescued, the girl is now in a safe home.

Police in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad reported an incident on August 8, where a 15-year-old Bangladeshi girl approached the police station seeking help.

The girl turned herself in at Bandlagura police station at 8:15 am that day. She told the police that her home was in Dhaka and that a neighbour of hers would take her on a trip to Kolkata, and that she was trafficked in February. 

A Sudhakar, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Chandrayangutta, told the media that the girl was brought to Hyderabad on the pretext of taking her on a trip to Kolkata and forced to perform sexual acts.

Based on the information given by him, the police conducted searches at two separate houses in Bandlagura and Mehdipatnam.

Along with the arrest of two women members of the gang, three women from West Bengal were also rescued who were forced to perform sexual acts.

An auto-rickshaw driver who used to take the Bangladeshi girl and other women to his ‘clients’ was also arrested.

Abraham Mathai of Harmony Foundation said, “That little girl, she was studying in class 6 or 7. She ran away from home fearing scolding after failing in her exams.  Yet a woman he knew robbed him of his youth in this way!’

‘I have demanded from the police that every male customer, whom the ringleaders sent to this girl, should also be arrested.’

‘If every customer is caught and given a strict punishment, then a strong message will be sent that what punishment is to be meted out for raping girls. But if some money can be made,’ added Abraham Mathai.

According to Shyam Kumble, many girls and women are being trafficked from Bangladesh and brought to Maharashtra. In the last five years, his organization alone has rescued more than 50 Bangladeshi girls and women.

‘If only our organization can rescue so many trafficked girls and women in Maharashtra, then imagine that many other organizations also work, they also carry out rescue work, how many thousands of Bengali women are involved in sex work in the entire country!’

‘In Budhwarpet, known as the brothel of Pune, at least ten thousand Bengali women are involved in sex work.  "Among them are women from West Bengal, as well as women trafficked from Bangladesh," added Kumble. Source: BBC Bangla.