A young girl working as a domestic help at the house of a techie in the city allegedly fell to death from the ninth floor of an apartment in Mahadevapura on Sunday night.
The deceased has been identified as Phooli, a tribal girl hailing from Assam, presently living with the couple at an up-scale apartment in Mahadevapura.
Police sources said that the girl was employed by a woman in New Delhi two years ago through a placement agency. However, she was sent to Bengaluru, to look after the employer’s daughter after she delivered a child a year ago, and had since been living in the city
On Sunday night, police sources said that the couple had been to a nearby mall leaving the girl alone with an elderly family relative. In their statement to the police, the couple said they rushed home after they were alerted that Phooli fell off from the balcony of the flat.
While the police have registered a case of unnatural death, activists who visited the apartment complex on Monday, raised several questions alleging the girl was probably a minor and reportedly abused. The police are waiting for the autopsy report to see if there is any truth to the allegations.
Geeta Menon of Stree Jagruthi Samiti, who visited the apartment on Monday, said that other domestic workers in the apartment reported to them that the girl was often ill-treated. “We have credible information that the girl was only 15,” she alleged. Moreover, in the contract, the employer has paid ₹50,000 after which there is no record of any payment made to the girl,” she claimed.
Ramachandrappa, Inspector of Police, Mahadevapura, told The Hindu that the autopsy report would throw more light on the case. “The documents available on her indicate that she was 20 years old. We have asked the placement agency in Delhi to furnish more details and contacts of the girl’s family, which will help us in the investigation,” he added.
