- Trafficking victim helps police put 10 members of gang behind bars
ANANYA SENGUPTA
New Delhi, April 24: A 13-year-old village girl from Bengal who was taken from town to town in Gujarat by traffickers and raped by “customers” returned with police to each of the safe-houses, managing to remember every street and address in an unfamiliar state.
Mithu Das’s monumental feat of memory has helped put 10 men and women members of the inter-state child trafficking-and-prostitution ring behind bars, police say.
Mithu (name changed), now 16, had never stepped out of hometown Habra, North 24-Parganas, before the gang took her away three years ago. After she was rescued by the NGO Anhad a little over two months later, she remembered every unfamiliar place name: Mehsana, Baroda, Viratnagar, Ahmedabad, Kanpur.
She remembered the addresses of the private homes, hotels and guesthouses where she was stripped, raped and battered day after day — and walked bravely back into those very buildings and rooms, accompanied by the police.
She did not forget the dates, the faces, even the names of her tormentors — Vijay, Geeta, Deena — who are now being tried in a Gujarat court.
“She has been absolutely brilliant. The investigation became so much easier because of Mithu,” said Prakshita Rathore, a Gujarat policewoman.
“Although she had never been to Gujarat before, she not only took the police team to the places where she was locked up but also identified the gang members by name. There were lanes and bylanes and she didn’t take a step wrong. In the end she busted the network in Gujarat.”
Rathore added: “Many of the accused women would say ‘We are old women; how can we be involved in such crimes?’ But she told us what each one of the men and women had done to her. She stuck to her story in court too. It’s her testimony that has made the case so strong.”
Mithu said: “I don’t have a good memory, but I have to fight the case. I have to say what happened to me in detail; so I remember.”
“The truth is,” she added, “I want to forget everything, start life anew and be happy. I want to study and work hard.”
Mithu, however, has a personal battle to fight. She is HIV-positive — one outcome of her two-month ordeal.
“I don’t think she understands the implications yet. But she is a strong girl,” said Shabnam Hashmi of Anhad.
“She had come to know in 2007, soon after she was rescued, that she was HIV-positive, but that doesn’t seem to have affected her spirit. At least 20 men raped her….”
Mithu, wearing an orange sari, sat in the Anhad office reading an English newspaper. She was a Class V student when a neighbour took her away from home promising her mother Rs 6,000 every month from the dance shows she would be doing in Gujarat.
“I was learning classical dance in school and thought it would be fun, so I agreed. I guess my mother didn’t realise what was going to happen to me. She took the money and let me go,” Mithu said.
“I was taken by train to Gujarat from Howrah. They made me watch dirty movies and asked me to copy their moves. I refused…. Everyone who visited me in the small dingy rooms in the big houses would pay the house owner.”
Members of the ring, which operated around middle-class localities in Gujarat, were businessmen, or couples who rented their homes out. One was a hotel owner.
Bengal girls are some of the worst victims of trafficking. A study by Save the Children in collaboration with the Bengal government revealed that across 265 villages in the state, 3,429 children had left home to work in urban centres and 271 of them — one per village — never returned.
I had mentioned sometime back of persons having exceptional memories. I had said this is God gifted as otherwise how could a 13year old girl remember all the names and places.
I would suggest that any of the large IT companies, snap up this girl.
With basic training, she would become an asset to any organisation.
No comments:
Post a Comment