Sunday Times 2
Two Bangalore men arrested for sexual assault on girls ‘sold by their parents’
It is India’s Silicon Valley, praised as a cosmopolitan city. But Bangalore has become a hub of crimes against women and children.
The dark side of the Garden City was exposed yet again when two men were arrested recently for “sexually assaulting” three minor girls for more than three years.
The Bangalore police said the minor girls were employed as maid servants at the home of A.W. Azeezullah Khan, 51, and his son-in-law Saadiq Ahmed, 28, in the city’s upmarket Victoria Layout area. However, they were treated as “bonded labourers”.
More shockingly, the police said, it was their second stint as maids at the accused’s residence.
The police claimed that the three minor girls – aged 13, 14, and 15 – “were sold” by their parents to the accused.
“The girls had managed to escape from their tormentors and reach their village in the impoverished district of Ballari earlier.
“However, their parents sold them to the men again. Since then they have been undergoing a traumatic experience at the hands of the accused,” a police officer told Mail Today.
Khan hails from Ballari and runs a used car business in the city. According to the police, he knew the girls’ parents.
The three girls, who successfully escaped from the accused for the second time in October, were rescued from the city central railway station by the Child Welfare Committee when they were trying to board a train to their hometown.
“This is a classic case of how people take people belonging to BPL (Below Poverty Line) families for a ride.
“Khan and Ahmed bought the girls for the second time for a meagre amount of Rs 5,000 per girl. The first time they had paid the parents Rs 20,000 for a girl.
“The accused sexually assaulted the girls whenever they got an opportunity,” the police officer said.
The girls, according to police, initially didn’t reveal anything about their experience.
“It was after much persuasion and counselling that the girls revealed the details,” the officer said.
The FIR filed against the accused revealed that the men used to strip and try to get cosy with the girls whenever female members of the family were out.
“They even told the girls that there was nothing wrong in getting into a physical relationship with them… the girls were even forced to read Arabic by their captors,” the officer added.
Khan and Ahmed have been booked under sections 23 and 26 of the Juvenile Justice Act, section 354 (a) of the IPC and section 11 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.
The investigation is ongoing.
The girls have been admitted to a government girls’ home in the city. The Child Welfare Committee is counselling the parents in an attempt reunite them with the girls.
© Daily Mail, London