DCW alleges Odisha Cops involvement in trafficking of ‘rescued’ girl

New Delhi: The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has alleged involvement of few Odisha Police personnel in the recently rescued 16-year-old’s kidnap and trafficking and demanded stringent action against the officials involved in the crime.

The DCW rescued the girl recently from Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu on February 5 with the help of Rajasthan Police. She is currently staying in a shelter home in Delhi. The girl was kidnapped from Odisha’s Rourkela and trafficked in 2017.

Addressing a letter to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal claimed that the victim’s father, who is a retired railway officer, has alleged that the father has approached the Odisha Police for help when his daughter disappeared.

“The concerned Child Welfare Committee directed the police to hand over the girl to the father. However, he has alleged that instead of handing over his daughter, the police officials in connivance with the traffickers facilitated the return of the girl to Rajasthan.”

“Thereafter, over the last one year, he approached several authorities in Odisha…, but to no avail,” Ms Maliwal said in the letter.

The victim was subjected to rape and abuse for over a year but somehow managed to contact her father only recently followed by the father informing the DCW.

The DCW chairperson said that the alleged “connivance of Odisha Police in the trafficking of the girl is extremely serious”.

“While the Delhi Commission for Women was able to rescue the girl within a short span of receiving the information, I fail to understand why the Odisha Police failed to do so for over a year. Due to the alleged negligence and connivance of the police, the girl and her father have undergone immeasurable suffering and the girl is deeply traumatised.”

“At an age when she was supposed to be studying in school, she has been now been impregnated and brutally abused for over a year,” she said.

Ms Maliwal has sought Mr Patnaik’s intervention in the matter and urged him to provide protection and welfare to the victim and also ensure that the alleged traffickers, as well as the concerned police officials, are punished according to law.

According to a DCW official, the 16-year-old was sold and forced into a marriage with a 40-year-old man, who has been raping her over the past one year.