10-YR-OLD RECOUNTS DAYS AS ‘SEX SLAVE’

Takes lid off thriving racket in UP shelter home

A 10-year-old, who fled from a shelter home in Deoria (UP) on Sunday evening, has taken the lid off a saga of sexual and physical abuse.

She has recounted how ‘‘red, white, black cars picked up them up at night and dropped them in the morning.’’ Most of them were sobbing when they returned and cried all day.

Locals took the 10-year-old to the police station where she narrated her harrowing experience and that of other girls – all between 15 and 18 years of age. The police raided the shelter later in the night and 24 girls were rescued; 15 girls are still missing. The couple who ran the shelter has been arrested.

The girl who escaped had been staying at the home for the last three years. Not just trafficking, but adoptions were also happening in an illegal manner at the shelter home. ‘‘We are looking into it and searching for the missing girls," the Superintendent of Police said. Investigations are underway, he added.

The privately run shelter in Deoria, about 300 km from Lucknow, was earlier receiving funds from the government, but its affiliation was cancelled in 2017 following a nationwide enquiry by the CBI which found irregularities in its functioning. However, the couple continued to run it without necessary permission. When a police team went to inspect the shelter last week, the duo misbehaved and turned them away.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered immediate removal of Deoria

District Magistrate Sujit Kumar, UP Minister for Women and Child Welfare Rita Bahuguna Joshi told reporters in Lucknow. She said Adityanath has also sent a high-level probe team to Deoria for on-the-spot inquiry.

The matter has surfaced in the backdrop of the alleged sexual abuse of young girls at a State-funded shelter home in Bihar's Muzaffarpur which led to a public outcry. Sexual abuse of 34 inmates out of 42 was confirmed in medical examination. In the aftermath of the alleged sexual assault of minor girls in Muzaffarpur and Deoria, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday asked states to build a single large central facility to house such children in a bid to prevent "abuse and misuse" by NGOs.