Four Nepali young women who are living a difficult life in an orchestra (professional dance company) in India have been rescued. The joint team of Maiti Nepal Birgunj Periodical Home and Parsa Police rescued them on Saturday and brought them back home.
Among those who were brought back are four young women and one young man. They were rescued and brought back to the country by the Janaki Musical Orchestra Group located in Kathnautia Math under Chaudadano Police Station, Motihari District, Bihar, India.
According to Goma Poudel, the head of Maiti Nepal Periodical House Birgunj, Maiti Nepal central office in coordination with the Nepali embassy in Delhi took the initiative to rescue an 18-year-old girl from Nuwakot who was in the said orchestra. She had reached there a month ago.
Maiti Nepal showed the priority of her rescue after the girl asked for rescue with the information that she was living a hellish life. When the rescue team from Nepal reached there, not only that girl, but also 2 more Nepali girls and another Nepali youth had been tortured and kept there by force.
Among the others who were rescued, there are two young women aged 21 and 22 from Chitwan and one young man aged 25 from Siraha. A 22-year-old girl from Chitwan arrived in India two weeks ago and a 21-year-old girl and a 25-year-old man reached India a month ago.
The conductors of the orchestra are Indian citizens Tinku and his wife Janaki Jaiswal. Janaki's motherland is Sunsari district of Nepal. Chowdhury Tharaki married Tinku and has been conducting an orchestra in India for a decade and a half.
She has reached Kathmandu to find girls who dance in the orchestra. He also took the four rescued people to India after reaching Kathmandu and giving them the lure of attractive earnings. Paudel said that the victimized Nepali youths who were rescued expressed their pain by saying that even though Janaki took them to India, they did not get any of the service facilities as scheduled.
"They narrated the pain of having to go and dance four times a day, and not getting a single penny even after working for 1 month," says Paudel, "Half a dozen young women were confined in a small room like a cage, they were not able to sleep or eat properly."
Paudel said that it has been found that Janaki keeps them in the room so that they do not have contact with outsiders or relatives in Nepal, takes away their phones, takes them with them when they go to the market, and wears them. She said that she was surprised when three more Nepali youths insisted that they had to rescue a girl when they went to rescue one.
"In the past, Nepali young women refused to return as much as possible in such rescue incidents," she said, "but this time when they asked us to rescue them too, it was clear that they had suffered great pain and torture."
All the four people who were rescued were given shelter at the temporary home of Maiti Nepal on Saturday night. The police brought them to the women and children cell of the district police office on Sunday and proceeded with their legal process. Efforts are being made to contact their parents. Poudel said that two young women from Chitwan are being taken to the Maiti Nepal Central Office and they are preparing to give them shelter.
