KOLKATA – A girl from Minakhan in the South 24-Parganas district of West Bengal was reunited with her family nearly 16 years after being trafficked, thanks to the efforts of HAM Radio enthusiasts in West Bengal. Now 27, she lives in Rajasthan with her husband and three children.
Her husband has told the police that he took mercy on the girl several years ago and took her home and married her much later.
“On Wednesday, we received information about a girl in Delhi who wished to meet her Ammi and Abbu. When we called her up, she was weeping. The only thing she could say about her parents was that they lived in West Bengal.
When asked about a location, she just mentioned a crossing with a tamarind tree where her Abbu was well-known. All the while, she kept on saying that she is a resident of Delhi now. Finally, we managed to get her to send photographs of herself, her children and her Aadhaar Card. Strangely, though the photograph on the Aadhaar Card was hers, the name was of a Hindu woman,” said Ambarish Nag Biswas, secretary, West Bengal Radio Club (WBRC).
The address on the Aadhaar Card was also of a town in Rajasthan. After a lot of effort, the girl’s family was traced to Minakhan. Her parents claimed that she went missing when she was 11-years-old.
They had even travelled to Delhi to search for her but to no avail. Finally, they had presumed that she is no more.
A close relative had apparently trafficked her to Delhi with the lure of a good life. The WBRC got the girl connected to her mother through a video call and when it was confirmed that the identity matched, authorities in Rajasthan were contacted.
Rajasthan Police personnel questioned the girl’s husband when he returned from work on Wednesday evening. That man said that he has nothing to hide.
“Several years ago, on my way back home in Rajasthan, I spotted the girl at New Delhi station. She was weeping and could say nothing about her family. There was nobody to help. Even the police and railway authorities refused to take charge. I realised that she was in grave danger at a big railway station like that and decided to bring her back home with me. My mother was alive at that time. I had no intention of marrying the girl. She kept crying for her parents but I could do nothing to trace her family. My mother passed away many years after that and it was her last wish that I marry the girl,” the man told the police.
The girl corroborated his version and also told the police that he was a good man and treated her well. However, she pined for her family back in West Bengal.
But, how did she get a Hindu name?
“As per law, she needed an Aadhaar Card before our marriage. A Muslim name could have led to complications and I gave her a Hindu one. I had no intention of interfering with her religious beliefs,” the girl’s husband told the police and she nodded in agreement.
The next question the police asked is why she kept on insisting on the phone that she lives in Delhi?
“She is illiterate and her traumatic days in Delhi remain etched in her mind. That may be a reason why she keeps on insisting that she is still in Delhi,” the husband explained.
According to Nag Biswas, the police are convinced with the man’s statements and have let him go.
“The girl’s family, meanwhile, is on its way to Rajasthan to meet her. The next course of action will be decided after they speak to her,” he said. -IANS
(IANS has copies of all documents of the girl and her family but will not disclose them as she is a trafficking survivor)
