New Delhi: Their faces covered with masks and scarves, Kamaljeet Kaur and Manish Khattar Wednesday walked into the Civil Hospital in Gurugram’s Sector 10 for a medical check-up. The couple, tugging at their masks repeatedly to hide their faces, was flanked by police personnel.
The previous day, their 14-year-old domestic help had been brought into the same hospital, her body covered in cuts, burns and bruises.
Arrested in the wee hours of Wednesday, according to the police, Kaur and Khattar have been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, for allegedly assaulting their minor domestic help.
ThePrint has learnt that the girl hails from Jharkhand’s Simdega district and was hired through an agency. She was brought to Kaur and Khattar’s residence by her maternal uncle.
According to the FIR, which ThePrint has seen, she had been working at the couple’s residence for five months and hadn’t been paid. “Kamaljit Kaur heated iron tongs and applied them to my body and hurt me badly and Manish Khattar used to choke me and hurt my private parts,” said the girl in the FIR. “I was not even given a full meal and was given only a little rice to eat. These people used to make me work the whole day.”
“He kept me confined in his house and did not allow me to talk to my family members on the phone. These two have beaten me a lot,” she added.
When ThePrint visited her at the hospital Wednesday, she was nibbling on a samosa and sipping tea — her first proper food in months. The burn marks and other signs of assault on her hand, face and body were visible and her hands and face were swollen. She was being starved and forced to hunt for leftovers in the dustbin, said the police.
“Despite her injuries, the child is stable and she is being taken care of,” said Omprakash, medical officer at the Civil Hospital.
Khattar worked for Max Life Insurance and Kaur worked for a media company, Media Mantra. Both have since been terminated by their respective employers.
Gurgaon-based Media Mantra tweeted: “We are shocked to learn about the human rights and child abuse allegations against Kamaljeet Kaur. As an organisation, we respect the Indian legal system and are strictly against any form of human rights abuse. The company has terminated her services with immediate effect,” they Thursday.
While Max Life said on Twitter: “Max Life believes in upholding high level of ethical and moral conduct at all times. We have severed the employment of the individual with immediate effect.”
Also read: Delhi Police arrest 3 for ‘trafficking tribal women in guise of placement agency’, 10 rescued
The rescue
Gurugram’s New Colony Police took cognisance of the matter after Pinki Malik of the Gurugram-based One Stop Centre (OSC), which supports women affected by violence, filed an FIR. Malik was apprised of the girl’s plight by activist Deepika Bhardwaj.
Speaking to ThePrint, Bhardwaj said she was contacted by a neighbour who wished to remain anonymous.
The girl was rescued at around 12-1 pm on the afternoon of 7 February and the couple were officially arrested the next day, said the police, and booked under IPC sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention); sections 75 and 79 of Juvenile Justice Act; and section 12 of POCSO based on Malik’s FIR.
The FIR mentions the girl’s age as 17. However, Nishi Kant, executive director of the Gurugram-based women and child rights organisation Shakti Vahini, and who has seen her Aadhaar card, puts her age at 14-15.
The matter also caught the attention of Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren after it was highlighted on social media. He tweeted: “According to the information, the child is from Simdega. Provide her with medical facilities, educational & government schemes and ensure her return to Jharkhand.”
Following Soren’s tweet, Simdega district’s deputy commissioner R. Ronita informed in another tweet that an AHTU (Anti-Human Trafficking Unit) team had been sent for rescue and rehabilitation of the girl.
According to Nishi Kant, executive director of the Gurugram-based women and child rights organisation Shakti Vahini, the girl has also been connected with her family back in Simdega via video call.
Speaking to ThePrint, the girl said she was brought to the couple’s residence by her uncle to take care of their 3.5-year-old daughter and help with other chores around the house.
“She was beaten every day, whenever they were annoyed. She was made to sleep naked at night. Both used to beat her up, used to stick hot iron tongs on her body to traumatise her and cut her with blades and knives. Food was minimal, only enough to survive on. She was eating from the dustbin,” said Kant.
Deepika Bhardwaj also told ThePrint that Khattar accepted having burnt her while being interrogated by the police. “He admitted to having burnt her, but said that he did not cut her. According to Bhardwaj, Khattar allegedly told the police, “Flow flow mein ho gaya (it just happened in the moment)”.
‘Huge demand for minor girls as domestic help in NCR’
According to Kant, who has been working to rescue women and children in such cases of trafficking and violence, said that such cases are common and girls, specially from Jharkhand, are being trafficked to the NCR region. “A huge number of minor girls are being brought to work as domestic help. There’s a huge demand in the NCR region, especially for minors, because these girls are tribal girls. They are considered honest and people from the cities are able to trust these girls,” said Kant.
ThePrint had reported in July last year that a placement agency had allegedly trafficked 10 tribal women and girls, six of them minors, from Jharkhand. Authorities suspected that the “placement agency” in Delhi’s Mukundpur was a front for a trafficking racket.
In another incident in May 2022, a 48-year-old woman working as domestic help in Delhi’s Rajouri Garden area, was allegedly assaulted and had her hair chopped off by her employers, who claimed that she was injured after a fall.
This is an updated version of the article
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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