The Andhra Pradesh police announced that they have arrested 74 persons so far in connection with the sex trafficking and rape of a minor girl over the last eight months. The 13-year-old survivor from Guntur district was forced into sex work by a woman who had offered to take care of her after she lost her mother to COVID-19 in June last year. According to police, the 74 persons arrested include kingpins of a sex trafficking racket, procurers and customers. Guntur police are on the lookout for six other accused, and one of them is stated to be in London.
According to IANS, the main accused in the case is Swarna Kumari, who had befriended the minor girl at a hospital where the latter's mother was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 in June 2021. After the girl's mother passed away, Swarna Kumari, who had reportedly introduced herself as a nurse at the hospital, took the girl away, assuring her father that she would look after her. The woman then allegedly forced the girl into sex work.
The girl’s father had reportedly filed a missing complaint a couple of months later. According to The New Indian Express, the girl was taken to different towns like Ongole and Nellore and forced into sex work. Eventually, she was abandoned in Vijayawada when she fell sick, and managed to return to her father in Guntur in December. The police registered a case on December 18, and arrested around 22 people on December 22, Additional Superintendent of Police K Supraja told the media on April 20.
ASP Supraja said the girl was ‘sold’ to several sex trafficking gangs who took her to various districts in Andhra Pradesh and neighbouring Telangana where she was forced into sex work. The sex trafficking networks were traced to Tanuku, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Kakinada and other towns, police said, and as many as 35 sex-trafficking organisers were among those arrested. Ten accused, including a B-Tech student, were arrested on Tuesday, April 19. Police said the accused also include private firm employees and poultry farm businessmen.
Explaining the modus operandi of two more of the main accused organisers, the ASP said that a woman named Jashinta and her daughter Hemalatha from Ibrahimpatnam in Vijayawada had also forced the girl into sex work. She said that Jashinta projects herself as a respectable women’s rights activist, offering to help women in distress and then forcing them into sex work. In the case of the minor girl, Jashintha and Hemalatha had confined her for nearly 25 days, got her treated as she was unwell, and then forced her into sex work with 14 people who raped the girl, police said.
After Jashinta and Hemalatha were released from jail, they started trying to extort money from those who had raped the girl, so as to not name them to the police, the ASP said. Of the 14 people, ten were arrested while four remain absconding.
So far, 80 accused have been identified of which 74 people have been arrested in phases since December. Twenty-five of the accused are still in jail, and each of the arrested persons has been jailed for 90 to 100 days each, the ASP said. A look-out notice has been issued for the accused who is currently in London, she added.
With IANS inputs