Kengeri police rescue two women locked up by contractor

The Kengeri police on Friday rescued two women, aged 50 and 25, from Jharkhand who were locked up by their labour contractor in the Kengeri area.

The police mounted the rescue effort after their Jharkhand counterpart requested their help on their Twitter handle. The Kengeri police confirmed that they received instructions from city police commissioner Bhaskar Rao. “We raided the shed near the Kengeri railway station where the two women were staying and where the contractor had locked them up,” said an investigating official from the Kengeri police station. “We learnt that the labour contractor didn’t allow them to leave because he intended to sexually exploit them.”

The police arrested the 58-year-old contractor Asgar Ali Mustaf, a native of Rajasthan, who the women said had been sexually harassing them. “We will register a case against him and take necessary action,” the officer, part of the rescue team, said.

Alok Sharma, a social worker from Jharkhand, tweeted on Friday morning that the women had been locked up and had faced harassment from the contractor. Sharma said he learnt about the women from a migrant worker who returned to the state from Bengaluru. “I tweeted when I learnt about the women,” Sharma said. “The (Jharkhand) police retweeted and asked me to share more details. With the help of a few labourers living in Bengaluru, I found out the women’s location (through WhatsApp) and shared it with the Bengaluru police who rescued them.”

The women, who worked in an incense factory, were not paid by their owner after the lockdown since the business had dried up. They escaped and got in touch with Mustaf, who promised them jobs, but sexually harassed them.