A 14-YEAR-OLD Bangladeshi girl rescued from a sex racket in Maharashtra’s Palghar district has told police she was sexually assaulted by at least 200 men in a span of three months, an official said on Monday, adding the claim was being verified. The minor was rescued after the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of Mira-Bhayander Vasai-Virar Police, in a joint operation with NGOs Exodus Road India Foundation and Harmony Foundation, raided a flat in Naigaon in Vasai here on July 26, the official said.

 

Six of those arrested and three of the five victims, including the 14-year-old girl, are Bangladeshi nationals, he said. Among those arrested are two women, aged 33 and 32, who allegedly facilitated the juvenile’s entry into India from Bangladesh. So far, ten persons have been arrested, Naigaon police station senior inspector Vijay Kadam said. As per her statement given at a juvenile detention centre, she was first trafficked to Nadiad in Gujarat, where she suffered sexual abuse. Harmony Foundation president Abraham Mathai said the girl had failed in a subject in school, after which she ran away from home.