Trafficked Nepalese teenage girl rescued from India

Nepal's Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau, Babarmahal have arrested six Nepalese nationals, including five women for their alleged involvement in trafficking a teenager to a Tantrik baba in India, from Dhading district, 60 km west of Kathmandu.

Kathmandu: A 16-year-old Nepalese girl who was trafficked across the border allegedly for human sacrifice, was rescued from India, and Nepal's law enforcement officials have arrested six people, including five women, for their alleged involvement. The victim, a seventh-grade student, was lured into this sinister scheme with the promise of being offered huge sums of money besides getting the blessings from the biggest tantrik in India, Nepal Police officials said.

Nepal's Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau, Babarmahal have arrested six Nepalese nationals, including five women for their alleged involvement in trafficking the teenager to a tantrik baba in India, from Dhading district, 60 km west of Kathmandu. The preliminary investigation shows that all the five women had connection with the tantrik baba, Dan Bahadur Malla, the bureau spokesperson said during a press briefing here on Friday.

He said a woman accompanied the victim from Kathmandu to New Delhi, via the Sunauli border on December 24 last year. She was taken to three tantrik babas for examinations, before being scheduled to be handed over to the biggest tantrik on Purnima, the full moon day that falls on Sunday," said Senior Superintendent of Police Jeevan Kumar Shrestha, the chief of the bureau.

The victim was holed up on the first floor of a building at Baprola Vihar Galli No-2 in New Delhi, from where she was rescued with the help of Indian police officials. Nepal Police said that based on their preliminary investigation, the girl was a possible target for human sacrifice. Because the girl's body was examined twice, first before she was taken to India," the official said.

The victim was flown to Kathmandu from New Delhi on Thursday via an Air India flight and was handed over to Nepal's Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau. She is currently recuperating at a non-government organisation in Kathmandu, security officials said. She was staying with her maternal uncle after her parents got divorced, according to sources in the Nepal Police.

Her relatives filed a police complaint on December 21 last year after she went missing from her uncle's residence on December 3. In 2019, police rescued a girl suspected to have been abducted for human sacrifice from the Jogbani border. Six traffickers were arrested then. (PTI)