Twenty-one Nepali women, who were set to be sent to Dubai for the sex trade on the pretext of getting jobs, have been rescued following the arrest of two men involved in human trafficking, Delhi Police said on Wednesday.
Vishnu Tamang, 29, and Ishwor Neupane, 32, both residents of Nepal, were arrested on July 25 from south Delhi's Mahipalpur and revelations from them led to rescue of the Nepali women from the area.
"At the instance of Tamang and Neupane, 21 Nepali women in the age group of 20-35 years were rescued. They had been brought from Nepal and were to be sent to Dubai," Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGIA) M.I. Haider said.
"The women were kept at a place in Mahipalpur for further movement to Dubai," Haider said.
The official said the agents had been inducing poor Nepali women affected by the recent major earthquake in Nepal on false promises of handsome salaries for different jobs in Gulf countries.
"The agents would send the Nepali women to Gulf countries with the help of fake travel documents and wrongful means," he said.
Tamang and Neupane arrived in India in 2014 and 2013, respectively, and began trafficking Nepali women to Middle East countries after developing contacts with some Nepali agents.
"They have trafficked a large number of Nepali girls for pecuniary consideration of Rs.4,000 to 5,000 per woman as their commission," the official said.
"The agents used to get money from abroad through Royal money or Moothoot Finance," he said.
Police said the women's travel to Dubai was arranged by an agent Raju with the active connivance of two Air India staff -- identified as duty manager Kapil, 30, and customer service executive Manish, 28 -- who were arrested on July 21 on charges of trafficking Nepali women.
Seven Nepali women were rescued at the international retail area of Terminal-3 earlier this week when they were slated to travel to Dubai.
"As the documents of all the women passengers were found forged by the CISF, they were handed over to immigration officials who later handed them to police for further legal action," said the official.
"After questioning and verification, we came to know that these women were being trafficked to Dubai in sex trade. We later got inputs of 21 more such women to be trafficked to Dubai," he said.
In February 2014, a joint team of Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB), Special Cell of Delhi police and CISF had conducted surprise checking at IGI Airport on specific information and found 76 Nepali girls travelling from Delhi to Nairobi via Dubai.
During checking, they found that these girls were actually destined to Dubai with Dubai visa issued for them.
"Their Nairobi tickets and hotels booking were cancelled after their entry into Dubai," he said.
"It was observed that this systemic loophole was being used to push Nepali women to Dubai by unscrupulous agents or human traffickers, whose involvement in a racket of prostitution was not ruled out," he said.
