Girl, kidnapped 10-years-ago returns home: 8 arrested

Eight persons have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping and selling of a 12-year-old girl from northeast Delhi who recently turned up and reunited with her mother and sister as an adult 10 years after she was abducted.

The arrested included a couple - Ranju and her husband Shyam Sunder - who had lifted the girl who was going to meet her sister, near Lohe Ka Pul at Janta Colony on July 2, 2006, and taken her to Ambala where they sold her to another woman Babli for a sum of Rs 12,000, said DCP (northeast) A K Singla.

In the next 10 years, the girl was sold nine times to different persons and raped by many men and bore two children out of wedlock with a man thrice her age and was widowed after which she was thrown out of her husband's home in Sangrur in Punjab, said the officer.

Following the return of the girl after a decade on July 25 and her meeting with her mother Anwari and sister Shanno, local police took the matter seriously and an SIT was formed to probe the case and arrest the accused.

During the course of investigation, the victim was also medically examined and counseled by NGO representatives.

Her statement was recorded before a magistrate under Section 164 of CRPC.

The SIT conducted raids in various districts of Punjab and Haryana including Mansa, Bhatinda, Patiala, Sangrur, Ambala and Kurukshetra and busted a notorious gang of human traffickers, he said.

The arrested also included Aruna alias Babli who was kingpin of the gang from Kurukshetra, tout Sarup Chand from Patiala, Partap Singh from Sangrur who bought and sold the girl, Jagshir Singh from Sangrur who married the minor girl and then sold her, Makhhan Singh (Sangrur) who mediated in marriage of the girl with a truck driver thrice her age with who she bore two sons, and Birender Singh from Mansa, nephew of the truck driver who raped the girl.

The arrest of Babli also led to rescue of two minor girls, kidnapped from Jaunpur in UP and Muzzafarnagar in Bihar, who were kept in a rented room in Kurukshetra, added the officer.