Following interventions by two NGOs and Nepal’s home ministry, a 16-year-old girl from the neighbouring country who was allegedly kidnapped and raped by a Nepalese labourer in Pune was rescued by police.
On Tuesday, representatives of Maiti Nepal, an organisation working for human trafficking victims, and Rescue Foundation in Pune approached the Pune city police with a letter from the Nepal home ministry over a 16-year-old girl who had gone missing from an eastern Nepal town in the first week of May and was believed to have been kidnapped.
A search was then launched in the Yerawada area by police, who traced the girl on the same night.
“Based on the information given by her, we found out that a Nepal man who was working as a labourer in Pune had brought her to the city after promising to get her married around May 4. He brought her to his accommodation, confined her and sexually abused her. We subsequently arrested him and handed him over to the Yerawada police station for further investigations,” said Bharat Jadhav, inspector in charge of the police’s social security cell.
The arrested man has been identified as Mohammed Rafiq Shaikh (23), who hails from the same area in Nepal as the girl. He has been booked under Indian Penal Code sections pertaining to kidnapping, rape and wrongful confinement as well as under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. The process to repatriate the girl has started.
