NY Indian couple held for keeping maids as slaves

Washington, May 17: A multimillionaire couple, who ran an international perfume business, were arrested by federal agents on charges of keeping two Indonesian women as slaves in their posh Long Island home in New York for the last several years, according to the Newsday, a prominent New York publication.

The couple, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, and her husband, Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, were accused of inflicting tortures on one of the Indonesian women, while threatening to have the other one's family arrested in Indonesia if she did not obey orders, according to officials. The women had been hired as housekeepers.

Varsha, an Indonesian, is married to Mahender Murlidhar, an Indian.

The Sabhnanis were arraigned in a US District Court on charges under a federal anti-slavery laws of obtaining ''the labour and services of another person by use of threats of serious physical harm to and physical restraint against that person.'' ''No one would ever think that human beings were being brought into the United States and held for slave labour, and beaten, and tortured in a beautiful mansion right here in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods on Long Island,'' said federal prosecutor Demetri Jones yesterday, who is prosecuting the case along with Assistant US Attorney Mark Lesko.

The Sabhnanis' lawyers maintain that their clients are innocent.

Newsday quoting Jones and Lesko said one of the two Indonesian women was beaten by Varsha Sabhnani with a broomstick, cut behind the ears with a knife, burnt with scalding water, made to walk up and down stairs as much as 150 times in a row, and, at one point, was forced to eat ''25 extremely hot chili peppers.'' The prosecutors submitted pictures showing what they said were the bruises and cuts inflicted on one of the women.

The reasons for the tortures included Varsha Sabhnani being unable to find an item of clothing or believing that the poorly fed women were stealing food, the prosecutors said. Her husband allowed the torture to go on and benefited from the household services of the women, according to Lesko.

The women were identified in court papers only as Samirah and Nona. The federal authorities and the police were called after Samirah, 51, was found wandering near a Dunkin' Donuts shop around 0600 hrs (local time) on Mother's Day, court papers said.

She later was questioned by agents working on the Federal Long Island Regional Human Trafficking Task Force with the aid of an Indonesian interpreter, Newsday report said.

Varsha Sabhnani's attorney, Charles Ross of Manhattan, argued that his client should be released on bail because the case amounted only to a claim of assault based on the word of the two Indonesian women.

Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani's attorney, Alexandra Tseitlin of Manhattan, asked that he be released on bail, saying her client had not been accused of torturing either of the women.

Magistrate Kathleen Tomlinson held both Sabhnanis without bail pending a hearing tomorrow. If convicted, each faces a sentence of between 17 to 22 years in prison.

UNI