Trafficking trail: Shahkot woman travel agent held

Aparna Banerji

Jalandhar, June 3

The Jalandhar rural police today arrested a Shahkot woman travel agent for trafficking a Jalandhar woman to Dubai. The victim, Seema (name changed), a mother of four, was later sent to Oman.

A case under Sections 406, 420, 370 and 370 A of the IPC has been registered at Shahkot police station against agent Mamta, who hails from Sadipur Jhiri village.

‘You’ve been bought for Rs 2 lakh’

In Dubai, a ‘madam’ asked me to do bad things which I refused. Other girls were also being pushed into some illegal business. We were hardly fed and girls stayed alive on tea for days. I cried everyday for a month. She said, ‘You’ve been bought for Rs 2 lakh. Pay us the amount if you want to go back or do what we tell you.’ Seema, victim

Seema had been told that she would get a job, free clothes and medicines in Dubai. However, upon reaching there, Seema was moved to Oman where she spent a month locked up in an office with little to eat or drink.

Women from Punjab, Hyderabad and Sri Lanka were lodged in the same room (an office) with her. They survived on tea and pieces of bread.

Speaking to The Tribune, Seema said, “Mamta promised and offered me a free trip abroad and a job. She said I’d be paid and given free clothes and medicines by a ‘madam’ in Dubai. Eventually, she sought Rs 70,000 for the formalities, which I borrowed from relatives and paid her. In Dubai, the ‘madam’ asked me to do bad things which I refused to do. Other girls were also pushed into the same business. We were hardly fed and girls stayed alive on tea for days. I cried daily for a month. She said, ‘You’ve been bought for Rs 2 lakh. Pay us the amount if you want to go back or do what we tell you.’”

Eventually, Seema escaped with the help of an office boy, who let her slip out, she said. She spent two months abroad – a month in the locked-up room and the remaining at a gurdwara in Oman, before coming back to India with the help of the Indian Embassy on June 2.

Seema said, “I had never thought I would see my family again. My happiness knows no bounds. I will never go out of country.”

Seema has four children – two girls and two boys. Her husband is a daily wager.

SP, Crime Against Women and Children, Jalandhar, Manjit Kaur, said, “Five Jalandhar women have returned from Oman. The Shahkot travel agent has been booked and an FIR against another agent from Phillaur has also been lodged.”

SSP Mukhvinder Singh said, “We have arrested one agent. Any one who has trafficked women will not be spared.”