For a week now, the Charkop police is struggling to arrest a 47-year-old woman — who they say is “shrewd” — booked in an alleged human trafficking case for trafficking a 14-year-old minor girl from a poor village in the militant-hit Karbi Anglong district in Central Assam and making her do household work in Kandivali (west).
The accused, Padmini Nikhar (47), a resident of Sector 5 in Charkop area had brought the girl from Kolongo Mukh village in Dankamukam over a year ago. Senior police inspector Ramchandra Gaikwad of Charkop police said, “We will definitely arrest her, but she is a shrewd woman. She needed a domestic help so she brought the girl from a poor village.”
Police sub-inspector Anita Tore said, “Every time we go to arrest her she locks the house. There is a child labour case against her at the MHB Colony police station launched in 2010 and another cheating case. She claims she runs an NGO, but has no documents to support her claims. We registered the case after Childline complained to us.”
A police source said, “She calls on 103 women’s helpline and says she has clout in human rights commission and Mantralaya.”
Nikhar has been booked under non-bailable Sections 370 (buying or disposing of any person as a slave), 374 (unlawful compulsory labour) of the IPC and relevant sections of the Juvenile Justice Act. The girl is now 15-years-old and will be repatriated by the CWC.
SP of Karbi Anglong told The Asian Age, “We got a call from Ravindra Yadav, a child welfare officer in CWC, after which we took suo moto action and ascertained the girl is from here. Her father has passed away and she has four siblings. Her mother works in a farm.”
