A year after she returned home from her captors, 16-year-old Meena (name changed) has not got over her one year-long nightmare. The days and the nights she would be taken from village to village, dragged in and out of buildings where faceless men raped her until they wanted her no more, and then sold her like cattle. It’s not just the trauma, Meena can barely walk. Every passing autorickshaw makes her hysterical — it was an autorickshaw driver who had abducted her on her way home from school and raped her before selling her in December 2006. But Meena is not alone. There are many more girls who are up for sale as sex slaves in several villages fringing Ahmedabad, Surendranagar, Mehsana and some areas of Rajkot. It is not a prostitution racket, but the girls are being passed on from one buyer to another for personal “use”. Most girls, however, belong to Dalit or backward communities. While some are abducted others are brought from other states and sold to rich farmers who sell them again only to buy new arrivals. Ask Kanchan and Krishna Waghela from Bhiwandi in Mumbai. The couple are still going around the villages hoping someone would give them back their daughter who was abducted from Mumbai and brought to Dharji village of Ahmedabad district in February, before she was sold to some unknown person. They had their daughter back for a few minutes last June, before she was snatched away in front of them. Meena was abducted by Munna alias Mohabbat Khan, 38, on November 23, 2006. She was forced to live with Munna at his home at Gedia village at Patdi Taluka of Surendranagar for a few days before she was sold to Hyat Khan, the Sarpanch of the village. Khan “enjoyed” her for a few days and then sold her off to Vilo Khan, his nephew in Jatapara village in Viramgam Taluka of Ahmedabad district. She was then passed on to one Narendra Dave. Meena was last sold for Rs 7,000, according to the official complaint. “Munna, Hyat Khan, Vilo, Dave — all of them had used her against her will,” says Prabhavati a social worker trying to rehabilitate Meena in Bavla. An FIR was lodged with Bavla Police Station on December 22, 2007, but the cops are yet to arrest the accused. “I have seen Munna on his bike even after I returned,” Meena said, adding, “He has threatened to kill me, if I say anything about him. The police said they will take me to the places where these men had taken me, but did nothing.” BS Pathan, DSP (SC/ST) told The Indian Express that the police have completed their probe and the men will be arrested in a day or two — seven months after the FIR was lodged. That, however, may be little solace for Kanchan and Kishan Waghela camping in Gujarat for over a month now hoping to see their daughter again. “Our daughter went missing from our home at Bhiwandi in Mumbai. We had filed an FIR with Bhiwandi police but nothing has happened,” Kishan said. He said their daughter Suneeta alias Munni, 15, was brought to Dharji village in Bavla taluka by two residents of Bhiwandi. When Kishan reached Bavla with the Mumbai Police to rescue his daughter in June he found her in a house at Meni village. But a village mob stopped the vehicle. “A huge mob surrounded us and snatched the girl away from us,” said Mumbai Police Inspector P R Wagh. “Pachason aisee ladkiyan hamarey gaon mein hain, lekin hum unhe nahin denge (numerous such girls are there in our village and we will not return them) the villagers told the police. The police don’t deny these incidents but say nothing can be done about it unless the Government takes action against the culprits.
