The police, investigating the alleged trafficking of a minor girl from Arsikere, has in custody the man who is said to have married her after she was sold to him for ₹3 lakh in Rajasthan. He is being brought to Hassan for further questioning and will be produced before a magistrate.
However, the police said the main accused, who played the key role of kidnapping the girl from Arsikere, is still at large.
Two police teams had left for Rajasthan following a complaint by the girl’s mother in Arsikere, who alleged that her daughter had been kidnapped and sold in Rajasthan. One team traced the girl and brought her back to Hassan on May 5, while the other team stayed on in Rajasthan to trace the accused.
The girl, who is four months pregnant, is in a children’s home in Hassan. Senior police officers and officials of the Women and Child Development Department have spoken to her to learn how she was treated by the accused in the last seven months.
The girl went missing from Arsikere in September 2016. Investigations reveal that she was lured by a woman with a promise of a job in Bengaluru. She was then taken to Chennai and from there to Bikaner in Rajasthan.
According to police sources, an aged person had ‘purchased’ her with an intention to marry her. She opposed it and the aged person returned her to the middleman. Later, she was sold to a 23-year-old man for ₹3 lakh, and he married her. The amount, according to the police, was shared among middlemen, who have a wide network, including a few in Arsikere.
The police said the middlemen have a strong network. In fact, a day before the police could reach the girl, a middleman had contacted her and asked her not to share information about his role in the case with the police. The police are said to have taken two local people in Arsikere into custody as part the investigation into the case.
