PATNA: The ordeal of a 22-year-old sexual harassment survivor from Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh is yet to come to an end. Currently staying under the protection of a non-profit in Patna, she shudders when hearing the name of the former ‘shelter home’ she was lodged in.
At the government-run Aftercare Home for Females at Gaighat in the Bihar capital, the young woman was allegedly drugged and forced into immoral sexual acts for over 10 months. “This happens to every young woman and girl staying there,” she said.
The woman made failed attempts to take her own life while being there. “Life had become hell for me. I didn’t want to live anymore,” she recalled.
On Friday, the traumatised woman met the director of social welfare department Raj Kumar at his office to narrate her ordeal. She was accompanied by functionaries of Mahila Vikas Manch, who came to her rescue after being abandoned by her husband.
The director listened to her tale of horrors. Earlier, counsellors of the social welfare department had also sat with the woman. “We have recorded the woman’s statement,” another senior officer said, requesting anonymity. He, however, refused to make any comment on the plea that the matter is pending before the high court. The high court, which took a suo motu cognisance on Wednesday, has asked for an action-taken report from the social welfare department before February 7.
The young woman suddenly became a cynosure of all eye in the state capital after a video vent viral on social media on February 1 in which she accused the superintendent of Gaighat-based Uttar Raksha Grih, Vandana Gupta, of forcing inmates into immoral acts. She had landed at the facility after being abandoned by her husband Vivek Paswan on a running train in April 2021.
The Ghazipur woman’s ordeal started at the age of 18. She was beaten up by her step mother at home in Ghazipur. Fed up with day-to-day torture she left home and boarded a train for New Delhi. “I was sexually assaulted in lieu of food provided to me in New Delhi,” she called.
After staying in an orphanage for some time, she landed in Rescue Foundation at Kanjiwada where she spent a couple of years and learnt skills for her livelihood. She stepped out about three years ago. As she was about to start a new life she met with an accident near Badarpur border near Faridabad and had to be admitted to a hospital where she met Vivek Paswan who she later married.
When she came to her in-laws house in Darbhanga, she gave birth to a boy but was soon separated from her child. Her husband abandoned her in the running train on way to Delhi from Darbhanga in April 2021 and disappeared from where she reached ‘Uttar Raksha Grih’.