Hyderabad: Suspected agents of traffickers attacked Prajwala Rescue Home staff at Amangal in Mahbubnagar leading to police intervention. The police arrested 21 brokers who had entered the rescue home two months ago posing as victims of trafficking. They tried to kill a kitchen staffer of the home, Sampurna, and also tried to attack coordinator Prameela. However, both of them escaped. This is the second attack by infiltrators in the last one month.
As per the FIR filed on Sunday, Nagabhushanam, Saidaji, Sunitha, Ammulu, Lavanya, Rabia and 16 others, aged between 20 and 25, entered the dining hall of the home and the kitchen, and tried to attack the staff.
An FIR was filed by G. Padma, the coordinator of the Prajwala Rescue Home, at the Amangal Police Station and 10 cases were booked.
Sunitha Krishnan, the founder of Prajwala which shelters 350 rescued women and children, 200 women aged between 18-40 and 150 children between 0-18 years, said, “The infiltrators tried to exploit the rescued victims who had no one to help and had to be on their own when they are released. As the only licenced rescue home in both TS and AP offering care for sex trafficked victims we have helped around 12,000 women so far. If the women were already known to be brokers why were they sent here? When we ask the police, they tell us that if these brokers as sent to jail, they will come out on bail. They say that reformation can occur only at Prajwala. There is not a single government run shelter for this.”
Pointing out that the Centrally sponsored Ujjwala and Swadhaar schemes were lopsided she said that they do not address sex trafficking with security measures.
“The distribution of funds is slow, just once in three months and many bogus NGOs are accessing the scheme,” Sunitha said. She also said that the judiciary does not stress on rehabilitation measures.
Narrating the first attack in Oct, Sunitha said that in August, seven women were rescued by the Gopa-lapuram police station. “They were admitted in our shelter as per a court order and in a few days we became uncomfortable with the women, as there was something sinister about them. We inoticed this when 35 girls at the home, who had been training well, suddenly turned hostile. In a few hours we realised that the seven were traffickers posing as victims and had 30 girls on their side already. But, we did not expect that they would attack us. Before the attack, we sought court help, but magistrates were helpless as the FIR descr-ibed them as victims. The 37 instigated another 100 and attacked the shelter from within. 16 people were injured including four of our staff and the whole place was vandalised,” she said.
