The Byculla police on Thursday arrested three women for allegedly forcing a 10-year-old girl into child labour. Two of the women include the victim’s mother and sister, since they recommended the victim for work to the third accused, the house owner. The house owner’s sister has been booked, but is yet to be arrested. All accused have been granted bail.
Nilofer Shabbir Qureshi (30), along with her sister Pinky, employed a ten-year-old girl as a domestic help. The girl was working in their house since February, and was often ordered to perform strenuous tasks like cleaning washrooms. She was allegedly subjected to verbal abuse and physical intimidation for failing to work as per her employer’s expectation.
The two house owners live on the 13th floor of a highrise, Maria Heights at Mazgaon. Senior police inspector L.H. Mathure of Byculla police station clarified that the girl was not physically tortured or thrashed. “She was only intimidated physically and threatened with dire consequences. She was forced to clean bathrooms and given other tasks like washing the utensils and clothes when she finally complained to her sister Gajnia, who herself works as a housemaid in a nearby building. Gajnia narrated her sister’s ordeal to her employer who helped file a police complaint. However, Gajnia and her mother Noornisa (40) were arrested for recommending the victim for house work,” explained Mr Mathure.
The accused have been booked under Sections 23 and 26 (wrongful gain) of the IPC and relevant sections of the Protection of Child Rights Act (2005). “We are yet to arrest Pinky since she is attending to her ailing father in the hospital,” added Mr Mathure.
A complaint was filed on Wednesday following which police conducted preliminary investigation and registered a complaint. They were produced in the Bhoiwada court, which granted them bail.
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Zambian caught with drugs worth `6cr
Age Correspondent
Mumbai, May 23
A Zambian national was caught with drugs worth `6 crore hidden in sewing machine spools (bobbin roles), in a repeat of last week’s drug bust at the Mumbai airport. Six kilograms of Amphetamine was found carefully concealed in 140 such spools in the check-in luggage of Alis Fataki (36) while she was planning to smuggle them out of the country in the early hours of Thursday.
Following a series of tip-offs and time-tested “profiling” techniques, a team of air intelligence unit (AIU) officials, led by assistant commissioner Sameer Wankhede, caught Fataki with the drugs hidden inside her luggage.
“She was slated to board an Ethiopian Airways flight to Malawi at around 3 am (via Adis Ababa). It surprising the woman caught in last week’s case too had used bobbin rolls for concealment,” airport customs commissioner P.M. Saleem.