Mumbai: The Pune police on Thursday arrested a man from Oshiwara, Mumbai, in connection with an alleged human-trafficking racket. The accused Mohd. Faiyyaz A. Yahya (28), hailing from Bengaluru, was caught from his residence in Oshiwara.
According to the Pune police, Yahya allegedly sold two Pune women for Rs. 4 lakhs each in Saudi Arabia. The police are on the lookout for four of his associates named Abdul Hamid Shaikh, Nasreen, Rahim and Shamima.
Promise of well-paying jobs
The accused lured these women with the promise of well-paying jobs in the Middle East. The accused allegedly operated from a recruiting firm A. A. Enterprises in Mahim.
Yahya and his accomplices lured poor women from different cities on the pretext of getting them lucrative jobs as house-maids in the homes of affluent families in Saudi Arabia with a monthly salary of at least Rs 35,000 per month. However, when the two victims, both from Ambedkar Nagar in Marketyard area of Pune, landed there on tourist visas and started working, they got paid much less than the promised salary and allegedly subjected to other forms of torture by their employers.
Unable to take it, the harassed women contacted the local (Saudi Arabia) agents to complain, but instead they demanded that the women cough up Rs 4 lakh each before they could go home to India. The local contacts informed the two victims that they were 'sold' to them by Yahya and others for Rs 4 lakh each, and until their money was returned, they would not be allowed to return to India.
Probe underway
Somehow, the women managed to return to Pune and lodged the complaint with Market Yard Police Station and the Social Security Cell on Monday, after which the cops swung into action. The police are probing the tentacles of this racket, checking how many more gullible women have been similarly trapped by the human-trafficking gangs, which other countries they are operating in. Yahya has been charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to common intention, buying or selling a person as a slave, extortion, cheating, etc.
Amol Zende, Deputy Commissioner of Police Crime Branch, Pune, stated,"one more victim has approached us and in that connection we are looking for the accused persons." The accused Yahya was produced before a Pune Court which remanded him to police custody till September 26.
