Free and shelterless in a big city

His daughter Sangeeta adds, “During the earlier raids, we used to take all the girls away from the brothel. Once they were away from the gharwali and felt safer, around 70 out of 150 girls stayed on with us. The rest opted to return to their brothels. Now, the police insist we take away only those girls who are willing to go.”

The main criticism hurled at Khairnar’s operations is that after the rescue, the girls have nowhere to go. The paucity of women’s homes in Mumbai make matters worse for these girls. Khairnar maintains that most of the rescued girls will be sent home if they want to. He is still unsure about where the others will stay, but he plans to set up a task force of rescued sex workers to work in red-light areas.

“These girls will be trained in karate. They will work as full-time rescue operators apart from gathering statistical data.”

Yet, on Sunday night, almost all the rescued girls wanted to go back. Some like 14-year-old Piali, just three weeks into the flesh trade, were waiting for a way out . Others were too terrified to speak. Clad in a bright red saree, Farida whispered before entering the station: “Marenge? ” Like the angry wound on Piali’s lower back, Farida had also been physically abused.

They started to relax only four hours later, ready to believe that the brothel owners could do them no harm. Eighteen hours later, ten girls had agreed to go home, while four of them wanted to stay on in Mumbai and be given alternate means of livelihood. Khairnar asks Smita (18) to stay on and help him with rescue operations. But Smita says, “Now that I’ve finally escaped, I just want to go home as soon as possible. Once I reach Calcutta,I’ll see what to do.” At least in their minds, for that moment, the ordeal was over.

…And the rescue goes on

Over 25 social workers from different organisations like G R Khairnar’s Suraksha, Manav Jyoti and Alka Pande’s Agnishikha Mandal are assembled at Khairnar’s Dadar residence. They then proceed to the D B Nagar police station accompanied by a few policemen, and march to Pavvala lane. The sight of Khairnar becomes the flavour of the day for curious onlookers, and even taxi-drivers seem well-versed with his mission. Squeezing through incredibly narrow bylanes, the group stops at the Simplex building.

Khairnar says, “Begin from the first floor.” The group rushes up the dark staircase into several tiny doorways. With their pallus and dupattas firmly tucked in, the women climb into lofts, yank open cupboards and rough up pimps to weed out minors from adamant older girls. The men are advised not to hit anyone, but this doesn’t prevent a few tussles from taking place.

Asked why they joined the trade, the girls’ replies are stock and typical. Each one claims she is above 20, and has children in the village to fend for. There is no sign of gharwalis, who the girls claim don’t live there anyway. A few older women and the pimps insist they are cooks in the household. They are then bundled into a police jeep and sent to the station along with a social worker. And the group moves on to raid the next building…