Girls were raped before being sold, say cops

AHMEDABAD: More terrifying details are emerging from the interrogation
interrogation of Maya Sathwara and her accomplice Prakash Marathi.
Isanpur police on Monday arrested one more accused involved in the human trafficking racket case from Bapunagar area. The accused has been identified as Prakash Marathi, a resident of Bapunagar who operates an auto rickshaw in the city.

It was revealed during the police investigation that Marathi and Maya Sathwara used to run the entire racket.

Marathi used to kidnap girls from different parts of the city in his auto and used to hand them over to Maya, who would later sell them in different areas of the country. It was also revealed during the investigation that in the kidnapping of the girls, Marathi was helped by another auto driver identified as Mahesh. For kidnapping the girls, both men used to get a cut from Maya. The police have been able to arrest Marathi from his house in Bapunagar area while the search for Mahesh is still on.

Saurabh Tolabiya, DCP Zone 6, said, "By interrogating Maya, we have found out that the accused have been involved in five human trafficking cases until now. However, we suspect that they are involved in more such cases, which will be revealed after further investigation. Our priority was to nab Marathi in the matter, which we did and his interrogation should reveal more details." Senior police officials suspect that around 50 more girls have been victims of the racket. Cops have sent teams to Kheda, Dakor and Bhavnagar where the girl was sold, to get more information from the families to whom she was sold to. Regarding the cases of five other kidnapped girls, cops have started investigating and are trying to contact the girls for further investigation.

Maya was selling girls for Rs 2 lakh

According to the police, after the girls were kidnapped, Maya used to give them some injections and liquor to keep them intoxicated. Meanwhile, she used to make fake documents for the girls such as aadhar card, voter id, etc and used to change their name. Later, posing as an agent or a family member of the girl, she used to get them married off to people in Kheda, Dakor and Bhavnagar, for which she used to charge money. 

A few days after the marriage, she used to take the girls back from the family and later, sell them to a new family. When members of the family where the girl had initially been married off to, would come searching for the bride, she used to say that the girl has fled and she is also searching for her. She used the same modus operandi everywhere, and used to give a percentage to her partners Marathi and Mahesh.

18-year-old girl busted racket

In January 2017, an 18-year-old victim who had been kidnapped, managed to return to her family in Ahmedabad. She narrated the entire incident in front of the police about how she was sold thrice over by Maya to different families in Dakor, Kheda and Bhavnagar. In front of the family from Bhavnagar, the girl revealed the truth about Maya and narrated the entire incident. After that, the Bhavnagar family took her to Ahmedabad and found her parents.