RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh Police have constituted a special team to probe how a woman from Rajnandgaon district, missing for the past six months, ended up in Jammu and Kashmir, where she is allegedly being forced to work as bonded labour.
The case came to light after Usha Sahu, a married woman with two children and a resident of Chichola village under Dongargarh police station limits, managed to call her parents from Srinagar, pleading to be taken back home. Her family had earlier lodged a missing person complaint after she disappeared around six months ago.
In a fresh representation to the Rajnandgaon district police chief, Usha’s parents claimed she was taken away by an unidentified youth from Bisahu Tola, a hamlet in their village. Her father, Charan Sahu, shared with the police the mobile number from which the call was received, saying his daughter informed him she was staying somewhere in Jammu and Kashmir.
According to the family, when they called back the same number, the person who answered claimed that Usha had been “paid for” in advance to work at his home in J&K for a year. He allegedly told them that since six months of the agreed period were still remaining, she could not be allowed to leave or go anywhere else.
Charan Sahu said his daughter broke down during a video call from Srinagar, crying and repeatedly asking to be brought back to Chhattisgarh.
Rajnandgaon Superintendent of Police Ankita Sharma said preliminary inquiry suggested that Usha may have left with a youth, believed to be her lover, to Jammu and Kashmir. “It appears he took an advance payment from a local resident there under some arrangement for domestic work and later abandoned her,” the SP said.
Police officials noted that many workers from Chhattisgarh travel to Jammu and Kashmir every year for work, often taking advance payments covering six to seven months of employment, with a commitment to continue working there.
“The matter came to our notice after the phone call made by the woman. We are in the process of obtaining the call detail records and location of the mobile number from which the call was received,” Sharma said, adding that a two-member police team has been formed and will travel to Jammu and Kashmir along with Usha’s parents to trace her and ensure her safe return.
The district police chief, however, said that at this stage, the case does not appear to involve organised human trafficking.