Kathmandu: “Menstruation cycle not started yet. Younger than 16 years. No scratch, wounds or tattoo on body. Height more than 5.4 feet. Weight less than 60 kilograms. Slim body. All body parts must be intact.”
The above criteria was the content of an advertisement, according to Nepal Police, internally circulated among a group in India by Tantrik Baba, a Hindu fundamentalist who claims to hold religious power.
On Friday, Nepal Police revealed a horrifying case linked to the advertising. Organizing a press conference in Kathmandu, Nepal Police informed that a racket of human traffickers trafficked a Nepali girl to India by promising lucrative income if Baba becomes happy.
We suspect that the advertisement caught the attention of a racket in Nepal, the police said. “They then started to search for the girls as demanded by the Baba.”
After some time, a teenager with the same features, went missing from her maternal uncle’s home on December 3. The girl was held hostage by the racket for a month in Kathmandu. She was out of contact with her family. The family members did not have a clue about their daughter.
They filed a complaint at the local police on December 21. The case was forwarded to the Anti Human Trafficking Bureau as police suspected it was a case of human trafficking.
On January 31, the Anti Human Trafficking Bureau started to investigate the case. Within two days, the girl was rescued from India, said Senior Superintendent of Police Jeevan Shrestha, chief of the Bureau.
The investigation of the police found that the racket kidnapped the victim from her maternal uncle’s home and held her hostage for a month in Kathmandu before trafficking her to India. She was trafficked to Delhi, India, through the Sunauli border. She was again held hostage at Pahadgunj in Delhi, the capital of India.
“If he will be happy, you will get a lot of money,” the kidnappers had assured the girl.
Lured by the offer, the kidnappers took the girl to India, said SSP Shrestha. “She was made to meet three different babas in India.”
A source at the Bureau told Nepal Live Today that the girl was even sexually harassed in India by the babas. Everytime she met a baba, she was told, “You will meet the powerful baba next time.”
The kidnappers had fixed a meeting with the so-called “powerful baba” on the day of purnima. “You will get a lot of money if you make the powerful baba happy,” she was told.
However, before purnima, the day of the meeting, she was rescued by a joint effort of Nepal Police, Nepal Embassy in India, Indian Police, and social organizations in India. She was also held hostage in the Ranahola area in Delhi, said police.
Police have arrested six persons on the charge of kidnapping the girl and trafficking her to India. According to Shrestha, police are further investigating the case as more people are involved in sending her to India.
According to police, there might be two reasons behind trafficking her to India: One, for human sacrifice, second for sexual harassment.
One of the alleged traffickers was a woman who was with the girl from the beginning. The woman checked all the body parts of the victim multiple times to check if there was any scar or tattoo imprinted on her skin.
“All the processes of the incidents show that the girl was being prepared for human sacrifice. Also because the trafficked girl was told the ‘powerful baba’ would meet her on the day of Purnima. a source at the Bureau told Nepal Live Today. “Why Purnima? Probably for sacrifice.”
The girl, whose parents were in financial difficulties, had agreed to go with the traffickers hoping to make quick money. While she was held hostage, traffickers and tantric babas would strip her of clothes seeking scars on her body.
More than 100 cases of human sacrifice have been recorded in India from 2014 to 2021, according to the data of National Crime Records Bureau of India.
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