3 Bangladeshis sentenced to 10 years jail term for human trafficking

A district court has sentenced three Bangladeshi nationals to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment in a 2012 human trafficking case.

District sessions judge S C Khalipe convicted the trio-- Abdul alias Afzal Shaikh alias Gaffar Shafiuddin Shaikh (48), his wife Shivali alias Sangita Abdul Shaikh (36) and her sister Nargis Abdul Hasan Mandal (30). The sentence was awarded on Wednesday.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 26,000 on each convict.

The trio was held guilty under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA) and IPC sections including 366 A (procuration of minor girl), 366 B (importation of girl from foreign country) and 372 (selling minor for purposes of prostitution).

On August 21, 2012, the Anti-Human Trafficking Cell of Thane police had conducted a raid and rescued five victims, including two minors. The trio was held from a hotel here, where a deal was being struck to push the women into flesh trade, prosecutors Vandana Jadhav and Rekha Hiwrale told the court.

The police had sent a decoy to the hotel to strike a deal and caught the three red-handed. The premises where the flesh trade was being run--a 'chawl'--was also raided by the police.

"So it is proved by the prosecution that the three accused persons in furtherance of common intention accepted money for providing girls for prostitution. It is proved that they were living on the earnings of prostitution business," the judge said in the order.

"It has also been proven by the prosecution that the accused procured two minor and three major victims for prostitution from Bangladesh. One of the victims was brought from Bangladesh to Mumbai and was left at the house of the accused," it said.

The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) had earlier sent 11-year-old son of the convicted Bangladeshi couple to a remand home.

The court ordered that the boy be kept in the remand home.