DCW busts trafficking racket, two men nabbed

New Delhi: The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) and the Delhi police has busted an alleged human trafficking racket operating in Nihal Vihar in the guise of a placement agency. The owner of the placement agency and the building have been arrested.

The racket came to light on Wednesday when a counsellor from mahila panchayat, functioning under the aegis of the Delhi Commission for Women, accompanied two women to the commission. The women mentioned that they were from Jharkhand and West Bengal.

The 30-year-old woman from Jharkhand said that she was escorted to Delhi by a local agent, Virender Sahu, from her village on pretext of a job opportunity. In Delhi, the woman was kept at a placement agency in Shakurpur. Her mobile phone and Aadhaar card were confiscated by the traffickers. After a few days, Virender Sahu dropped the woman at Arti Placement Agency located in Nihal Vihar. The placement agency was run by Arti and her husband Baburaj. The woman was brutally beaten up by the couple when she refused to conceive and produce children.

The woman was then raped for two days by another agent named Baratu. Later, she was confined in the placement agency.

The woman from West Bengal narrated that she was accompanied by a woman from her native place for better work opportunity in the national capital. The latter abandoned the 40-year-old at Arti’s agency. On instructions from Baburaj, the woman was placed to work as a domestic help in a house. When the woman developed health issues, she was locked up in Baburaj’s office in Nihal Vihar.

The commission, with the help of Delhi police, raided the placement agency Wednesday night. Apart from the two women, there were 6 other girls and 2 more women (one pregnant and another with a child) confined in the “office”. Both the women alleged that Arti and Baburaj trafficked women on the pretext of providing them jobs and forced them to produce children for couples who could not conceive.

The two survivors, somehow, manages to escape and approached the Delhi Commission for Women for help. A probe into the case is underway.