A woman running a brothel in the city has been sentenced by a court here to 10 years imprisonment for forcing a minor girl into prostitution.
Additional sessions judge Kaveri Baweja awarded the jail term to convict Haseena for the offences of inducing a minor girl to carry on prostitution and for detaining the victim, who was less than 17-year-old.
The judge has also directed closure of the brothel after eviction of the people residing there.
‘The victim has been held to be a ‘minor’ under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, and convict Haseena is found guilty of the offences punishable under sections 5(1)(d) [induces a person (minor) to carry on prostitution] and 6 (detaining a person in premises where prostitution is carried on) of the Act.’
‘...the above named convict is directed to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 10 years,’ the judge said and imposed a total fine of Rs 20,000 on the convict.
After being brought here, she was forced to engage in prostitution against her wishes and whenever she refused she was beaten up, the girl had alleged.
The order came on the complaint of the victim, a native of Darjeeling in West Bengal, who was rescued from a brothel located at G B Road here during a routine police raid.The girl in her complaint had alleged that she was brought to Delhi in 2009 by co-accused Rajni, who is currently absconding and has been declared a proclaimed offender, on a promise of getting her a good job. During the trial, Haseena claimed that she had been falsely implicated in the case and that the victim was not a minor. Haseena had also denied the allegation that the victim was being held in the brothel against her wishes.
The court, however, convicted her by relying on the testimonies of the victim, the police team which had rescued her and her bone tests conducted during investigation which showed that she was a minor.