New Delhi: A 12-year-old Bangladeshi girl has been accused of being raped by over 200 men in India in three months after she was caught in a prostitution ring.
The girl had fled her country with a woman after failing her exams.
Acquaintances lured her to India and pushed her into human trafficking. The minor was rescued along with four other women on July 26 after the police busted the ring in Maharashtra’s Palghar. A total of nine people have been arrested in connection with the ring.
NGOs Exodus Road India Foundation and Harmony Foundation assisted the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Mira-Bhayander Vasai-Virar (MBVV) police in the case.
“In the remand home, a 12-year-old girl has said that she was first taken to Nadiad in Gujarat and sexually assaulted by more than 200 men in a span of three months. This girl is not yet a teenager, but her childhood has been stolen by the demons of prostitution,” Harmony Foundation founder-chairman Abraham Mathai was reported to have said.
Mathai demanded that all 200 men who had raped the girl be arrested. Since the girl had failed a subject in school, she decided to run away from home with a woman she knew, fearing her strict parents. “The woman smuggled her into India and forced her into prostitution,” Mathai said.
A case was registered on July 27 under provisions of the Indian Penal Code, Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Juvenile Justice Act, Foreigners Act and Passport Act.
