Srinagar: Husband and wife were among three persons sentenced to ten years jail by a fast track court on Monday for pushing illiterate, backward and poor teenage girls into flesh trade in various hotels at New Delhi in 2004.
The case was registered at police Station Magam and came to be registered after police received from reliable sources an information on 10-01-2004 that accused Syed Sajad Ahmad and his two sons Syed Irfan and Shahnawaz of Hagarpora, who are running a readymade garments shop under name and style “Open Heart Garments” are also involved in a criminal act whereby they allure the educated minor girls in the name of employment in good firms, were actually taking them to New Delhi for flesh trade and illicit intercourse, against their will and wishes.
After the case was initially registered at Police Station Magam under FIR No (5/2004) and got investigated by it, later, in the year 2006, Jammu and Kashmir High Court transferred the case to CBI for further investigation.
The chargesheet was filed against 11 accused, and on culmination of trial, three of the them– Syed Sajad Hussain S/O Syed Mohammad Hussain R/O Hagarpora, Magam, Budgam. Tariq Ahmad Malla S/O Ghulam Mohammad Malla and his wife Ms. Nuzhat Nasreen alias Julie of Narwara Srinagar were convicted for the commission of the offences— 366-A, 372, 376/109,120-B RPC, 3/4/5 IT(P) Act.
A long drawn trial of 14 years went on in the Fast Track Court, Srinagar and finally it had a tryst with destiny on the Human Rights Day—10th of December.
“Today is Human Rights Day as recognized by the United Nations and is celebrated across the globe. And on the eve of it I am to announce sentence to be awarded to the convicts—Tariq and Julie, who are husband and wife and co-convict Syed Sajad, who out of eleven accused, found to have conspired to commit the most detestable, obnoxious, rank immoral and heinous crime and sin of enticing and seducing the illiterate, backward, poor teenage girls of Magam, Kashmir to be used in flesh trade in various hotels at Delhi,” said Tahir Khurshid Raina, judge Fast Track Court (2ND Additional Sessions Judge, Srinagar).
“The very common factor of all the victims in the case was that of their extreme poverty, illiteracy, backwardness coupled with innocence which made them to fell prey to the allurements of getting employment as domestic aides, given to them by none else but by their neighbourer accused Syed Sajad, who approached their fathers as a harbinger of hope and saviour to bail them out of jaws of poverty,” the court observed. “But who knew that when truth will get unveiled, it will prove more tragic and tormenting than poverty itself, which they desired to end by reposing blind faith in their close acquaintance. Not only he, but husband-wife duo, Tariq and Julie in whose custody at Delhi they were sent by accused Syed Sajad, the victims may have created a castle of dreams in their imaginations throughout their journey from village to metropolitan, shattered so horribly that this they never ever had comprehended in their vistas of life.”
As the incidents unfolded by the victims, so heart wrenching the treatment they got at the hands of their own denizens, that after five years of their unfortunate happening, when they appeared before the court to depose, they were wailing and crying while re-collecting their unexpected tryst with melancholy, a gloomy phase of their life journey which they spent at L-52, Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi in the late 2003.
After threadbare examination of the evidence, the court reached to an “unflinching conclusion” that accused Syed Sajad, Tariq Ahmad Malla and Julie were hand-in-glove in exploiting the minor daughters of Kashmir and pushed them in flesh trade against their consent at Delhi and were thriving on its earnings.
Accordingly, they are convicted for offences under section 366-A, 372, 376/109, 120-B RPC and 3/4/5 Immoral Traffic and (Prevention) Act.
“I, therefore, on the basis of inferences drawn from this lengthy discussion on the subject, award the convicts in following manner: 10 years rigorous imprisonment for commission of offence under section 366-A RPC with fine of Rs. 10,000/-; 10 years rigorous imprisonment for commission of offence• under section 372 RPC with fine of Rs. 10,000/; 10 years rigorous imprisonment for commission of offence• under section 376/109 RPC with fine of Rs. 10,000/-; 10 years rigorous imprisonment for commission of offence• under section 120-B with fine of Rs. 10,000/-; 3 years rigorous imprisonment for commission of offence• under section 3-ITPA with fine of Rs. 2,000/-; 7 years rigorous imprisonment for commission of offence• under section 4-ITPA with fine of Rs. 1,000/-; 10 years rigorous imprisonment for commission of offence• under section 5-ITPA-with fine of Rs. 2,000/-;” the court ordered that all sentences shall run concurrently.
