Nine sentenced to life in Hyderabad trafficking case (Img: Dynamite News)
Hyderabad: The Special Court for NIA Cases in Hyderabad has sentenced nine people, including eight Bangladeshi nationals, to life imprisonment in a 2019 human trafficking case involving Bangladeshi women who were brought into India and forced into prostitution.
According to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the court passed its order on September 17 and imposed a combined fine of Rs 1,37,000 on the nine convicts. The court also awarded three months of simple imprisonment to each in case of default in paying the fine.
The case relates to a trafficking network that allegedly lured Bangladeshi women into India with promises of well-paid jobs and decent wages before forcing them into prostitution.
The original case was registered by the Telangana Police at Pahadi Shareef Police Station in Hyderabad after an operation in September 2019. During the operation, three Bangladeshi women were rescued from a brothel in Jalpally village.
Another woman was rescued from a house in Mahimood Colony in Balapur, Hyderabad, during the same operation.
The NIA later took over the investigation and re-registered the case on October 12, 2019, as RC-03/2019/NIA/HYD.
During its investigation, the NIA established the involvement of the accused in the trafficking network. The agency subsequently filed a chargesheet against 12 accused on October 17, 2020.
Three of those named in the chargesheet — A1, A3 and A7 — were absconding at the time. The remaining accused were arrested from different locations in West Bengal and Telangana during 2019 and 2020.
The nine people sentenced by the court are Ruhul Amin Dhali (A2), Mohd Yousuf Khan alias Md Imran (A4), Bithi Begum alias Khadija Shaik (A5), Imamul Ghazi alias Mohd Rana Hussain (A6), Mohammed Al Mamun (A8), Sojib Shaik (A9), Suresh Kumar Das alias Sagor (A10), Mohd Abdulla Munshi alias Abdul Sarkar (A11) and Mohd Ayub Shaik (A12).
The accused were prosecuted under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Foreigners Act, 1946, and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956.
The court's September 17 order brings the prosecution against the nine convicted accused to a conclusion, with each receiving a life sentence for their role in the trafficking case.
The case highlights the investigation into a network that operated by bringing women from Bangladesh into India through false promises of employment and subsequently exploiting them in prostitution.
