Odisha woman rescued after being sold for Rs 1L in Chhindwara; 5 held

Bhopal: A 50-year-old woman from Odisha, trafficked and sold for Rs 1 lakh to work as a domestic helper in Madhya Pradesh, was rescued by police from a village in Chhindwara district earlier this week. Police said the woman was rescued on June 3 and was kept at the one-stop centre. However, due to the language barrier, as she only spoke Odia, it was only after her kin arrived and narrated the ordeal she underwent that a case was registered against the five accused, and all of them were arrested.Those arrested are two Odisha residents who were sellers, one man from Narsinghpur district who acted as a middleman, and two accused from Chhindwara who were buyers. The incident took place at Guraiya village under Singori police outpost of the district. The accused have been identified as Kandarp Nayak, 32, Nandini Nayak, 48, both residents of Odisha, Rakesh Shukla, 36, a resident of Narsinghpur, Chhidami Malviya, 55, and Neeraj Malviya, 28, both residents of Guraiya village in Chhindwara.As per the woman, she went to Devgarh on March 26 for treatment. There, accused Kandarp Nayak and Nandini Nayak approached her and offered her a job with better wages in Madhya Pradesh. They brought her to Narsinghpur district, where, with the help of accused Rakesh Shukla, they sold the woman to Chhidami and Neeraj Malviya, both father and son, in Chhindwara for Rs 1 lakh. "The woman was unaware all the time. After a month, when she sought wages, she was told by the accused that they bought her. They brought her for domestic and other work. She faced difficulty in escaping too, as she was kept under guard and did not understand the local language. "It was on June 3 that she managed to escape in the night and walked for the entire night before reaching a village. The villagers there informed us. We rescued her and kept her at the one-stop centre. As she could only speak Odia, we contacted her kin, who came there and then talked to her. To them, she narrated her ordeal, and based on it, a case was registered, and all five accused were arrested," Singori police outpost in-charge Pankaj Rai told TOI.