GHAZIABAD: The 17-year-old girl from Howrah who was rescued from a gang of human traffickers had been sold multiple times in Ghaziabad and Meerut. She was sold by Shariful Gazi , the alleged kingpin of the trafficking ring, for Rs 30,000 to one Bharti in Ghaziabad’s Nandgram, who in turn sold her to another woman named Sonia for Rs 70,000.The girl said she was forced into prostitution by both the women and sent to various places in Delhi, Ghaziabad and Meerut on calls. She alleged that Sonia’s husband Rakesh not only assaulted her sexually but also burnt her with cigarette stubs if she refused.Back home in Bengal, her parents earn their livelihood as embroidery artisans. She, like her five siblings, used to help them in the work.“My biggest mistake was that I trusted Shariful blindly. He told me he wanted to marry me. I had never seen him before April 4, when he first asked me to meet him. Prior to this we only spoke over the phone. I had come to know him through a random call he had made to me one day,” the girl said.Shariful took her to his friend Babu’s house at Canning in South 24-Parganas, and after a few days, the duo brought her to Ghaziabad to sell her off to Bharti for Rs 30,000.“Bharti was very abusive and used to beat me up daily without any provocation. I stayed there for a few days and then was shifted to Sonia’s house. There were several other girls who were forced into prostitution,” the 17-year-old said, adding that she had lost all hope of getting reunited with her family. Soon after her disappearance, the girl’s mother had lodged a kidnapping complaint with Uluberia police, and an investigation was subsequently launched.

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