Horror in Vasant Kunj: Details emerge in domestic maid abuse

A senior employee of a French multinational company is facing serious charges of using dangerous weapons to cause grievous hurt and of enforcing bonded labour on a young tribal girl from Jharkhand whom she had employed as a domestic help through a name-less placement agency in June. The rescued teenager has told the police that she was beaten and attacked with knives and brooms by her employers, kept in a half-naked state to prevent her from running away, was not given leave to visit her mother and was not paid a single month’s salary since she was hired. The teenager, who the police believe could be a minor and have sought a bone ossification test for confirmation, was admitted to Safdarjung hospital after she was rescued from her employer’s home in Vasant Kunj, an upmarket South Delhi neighbourhood, on Monday night. The rescue was carried out by a team comprising the Delhi Commission of Women, NGO Shakti Vahini and the Delhi Police. According to members of the rescue team, the victim’s face and body was severely bruised and wounded, she had cuts on her body, her eyes and ear lobes were swollen, and she had a deep cut on her head. [caption id=“attachment_1149391” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A representational picture. Reuters[/caption] The victim comes from a village in Sahibganj, a pre-dominantly tribal district in north Jharkhand. She has never been to school. She has told the police that she was brought to Delhi by her ‘aunt’, whose identity and whereabouts are yet to be established by the police. Equally mysterious is the identity of the placement agency involved, which served as the broker between the ‘aunt’ and the girl’s employers. The placement agency is believed to be located in a South Delhi locality called Kotla Mubarakpur but its address has not yet been verified by the police. Raids, they say, are being conducted at various places. The employer is believed to have given the police a mobile number that she had used to contact them and the police have recovered a receipt from the employer’s home that confirms involvement of a placement agency from Kotla Mubarkar. The agency, as per the arrangement, was to be paid the domestic help’s combined salary for six months amounting Rs 24,000 (Rs 4000 per month for six months). The girl’s employer is a fifty-year-old woman employed as head of communications at the French manufacturing company Alstom India, which has an office in Noida. A divorcee, she lived with her 90-year-old mother and was known among neighbours for looking after stray dogs in the neighbourhood. Arrested on Tuesday, she was on Wednesday (October 2) sent to 14-day judicial custody by a local court. She has denied all allegations against her. According to sources, the employer has told the police that her domestic help was suffering from ‘schizophrenia and psychosis”, had been taken to see a doctor at a private hospital and was under medication. The employer is believed to have told the police that the gash on the girl’s head was caused by a fall and that she had bruises on her body when she (the employer) hired her in June. The victim’s mother, who has been contacted by officials of the Jharkhand government after the victim gave them details of her village, is expected to arrive in Delhi on Thursday. Sources in touch with the resident commissioners of the Jharkhand government who visited the victim in the hospital, say the girl’s family live in dire poverty and that the mother, who speaks only the local dialect, was extremely apprehensive of travelling to Delhi. The details of when exactly the victim arrived in Delhi remain sketchy with reports varying between a couple of months to a year ago. It also remains unclear whether she had earlier worked in another house, as some media reports have suggested. A clearer picture of how, by whom and under what circumstances the teenager was brought to Delhi is expected to emerge after the police have recorded the mother’s statement. Once the victim is better, her statement will be recorded before a magistrate. Right now, top on the police’s agenda is to track down the ‘aunt’ and the placement agency involved. The results of the bone ossification test to determine whether the girl is a minor are expected on Thursday. If the test confirms she is a minor, the accused could be to be charged with trafficking, say police.