Woman gang-raped by two men, but her ordeal doesn’t end there

A 27-year-old woman from Jharkhand was gang-raped by two men inside the labour shed in a factory in Kumbalgodu, where she was working. Though she managed to escape from the place, she was sexually harassed again by another contractor, who gave her shelter during the lockdown in Kengeri.

The survivor has a seven-year-old child and she, along with her friend, a 40-year-old woman and her five-year-old child, used to stay in Jharkhand. Her advocate, Rajalaxmi Ankalagi, said about eight months ago, she was approached by an acquaintance from the same village, Damaru, who took them to New Delhi on the pretext of giving them a job. “They were sold to two unknown men who brought her to a factory in Bheemanakuppe, Kumbalgodu. Here, two men started harassing them inside the factory,” she said.

The survivor, in her complaint to the police, stated, “The two men introduced themselves as Suresh Gour and Nur Islam Ansari, and said they would teach us the work to be done at the factory. Since then, they kept harassing me at work. They had told us that they would give us Rs 9,000 per month but were only giving Rs 200 on a daily basis. My friend and I decided to escape from the shed but were caught by the accused. On January 8, they locked me in a room and around 9 pm, Nur returned and raped me. The next day, both Nur and Suresh came back and raped me again. They took my friend’s phone so that she does not inform anyone and threatened to kill us if we revealed this to anyone. Fearing them, we resumed our work for around two months and one day, we escaped from the factory.”

She added, “We were hiding and living on the streets when we met Azghar Ali Mustaf. He took us to a construction site and gave us food and shelter when the lockdown was implemented. Later, he started misbehaving with me and asked for sexual favours. On May 5, I went to the local police station to check for trains to return home when I met Nicholas from our village. I told him about the harassment by Mustaf and he encouraged me to file a complaint with the police. On May 22, I filed a complaint with the Kengeri police.”

Police arrested Azghar, a contractor from the labour shed. Seeing how quick the police responded to her complaint, she narrated her ordeal to them. She was taken to the Kumbalgodu police station where she filed a complaint against the other two accused.

Rajalaxmi said both Jana Shakti and SWAT (Stranded Workers Action Network) joined together and helped her file a complaint with the police and was shifted to a shelter home immediately. She said both the women were counselled and are making arrangements to send them back home.

DySP Lakshmi Narayan said the Kumbalgodu police have arrested both the accused from the factory. “Both are from West Bengal and spoke to the victim in their local language. During the investigation, it was found that a person named Sanjeev brought them to the factory and was collecting their salary directly. He was paying them only Rs. 200 while keeping the rest for himself. Three months back, when the two tried to escape, he was the one who found them and brought them back to the factory, after which he returned to his hometown.We are trying to trace him to see if he was involved in trafficking,” he said.