Witnesses turning hostile may have led to acquittals in Kerala human trafficking case

The victims include those from Kerala and other parts of the country, as well as from Sri Lanka and other south-east Asian countries.

KOCHI: The court’s decision to let off six persons in the Nedumbassery human trafficking case even as it handed down a stiff sentence to the fellow accused was apparently due to several victims turning hostile during the trial, the CBI believes.The CBI had made 13 victims as witnesses in the case.

According to CBI, of the 13 victims, as many as seven turned hostile during the trial stage which might be the reason behind the acquittal of six accused who were suspected to have nexus with the prostitution racket operating in the Gulf countries.

“We cannot blame these witnesses as they fear the risk of getting exposed before society. Most of these women hail from very poor families and, some of them even have children. However, the kingpin who ran the sex racket was convicted by the court,” an officer said.The CBI believes there are more victims in the case and majority of them refuse to come before the court fearing social stigma.

The victims include those from Kerala and other parts of the country, as well as from Sri Lanka and other south-east Asian countries. “The exact number of persons trafficked by the racket to the Gulf is unavailable, which will be more than 100. These women were taken to the Gulf countries using visiting visas.

“The racketeers take apartments on rent for a month and sell these women. After a month, they will be taken to another place so that law enforcement agencies will not be able to track them down,” the officer said.It was following the arrest of Anil Kumar, a native of Vattapara, the CBI got information about the number of victims from Kerala.

“Following Anil Kumar’s arrest, we could check his email account and retrieve the details of the women taken from Kerala to the UAE for prostitution. We also received information about some women after checking the list of persons deported from the UAE between 2009 and 2012,” CBI officer.

As per the statement given by Lissy Sojan, the second accused in the case, to the Crime Branch which first probed the case, she was the first victim of the racket.Later, she assisted Suresh in running the brothels by identifying financially-weak women in Kerala and trafficking them to the UAE.

Kingpin of the racket

K V Suresh, the kingpin of the racket, was running a studio at Deira Dubai. He had operated brothels in various places in the Gulf, including Muscat, Sharjah and Ajman. “He doesn’t even know the basics of photography. The studio was initially owned by Suresh’s brother and was later handed over to him. He was fully engaged in the illegal business,” a CBI officer said.