Now shifted to a shelter home at Narendrapur off Kolkata, the women say they have got a fresh lease of life.
"We too would have died there due to malnutrition or neglected healthcare. We are lucky to have escaped from there. Almost every month a woman use to die there," 25-year-old Teesta Khatun (name changed) alleged.
Trafficked at the tender age of five, she was staying at the welfare home run by local NGO Dulal Smriti Samsad in a village, 60 km from here.
Following allegations of sexual exploitation and unnatural deaths, the home was closed down by the state government while CID officials are already investigating how many of the inmates had died in the last few months and why were they buried secretly.
Skeleton and human bones have already been dug up from the banks of river Damodar.
Anti-trafficking activist Indrani Basu, who runs shelter home 'Sanlaap', points out that the inmates were traumatised and need psychological counselling to get rid of the shock.
"Besides sexual and physical exploitation, they are malnourished also. Now we are trying to rehabilitate them mentally and physically with regular counselling and medical treatment," she says. (MORE)
