New Delhi: The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation to the family of a tribal maidservant from Jharkhand, whose body was found hanging at her employer’s Kaushambi home in Ghaziabad this June.
The commission issued this directive after a detailed hearing of the case in which senior officials of Jharkhand state anti-trafficking unit and UP police handling the case took part. The Rs 1 lakh compensation will mean a windfall for Lurki’s family in Pesrar village, Lohardaga, several light-years away on development indices from mall-city Kaushambi in the National Capital Region.
The commission took up the case after NGO Shaktivahini sought its intervention on the grounds that the maid, Phoolmani Nagesia, alias Lurki, was a tribal teenaged minor.
Earlier this month, an anti-trafficking team arrested the girl’s trafficker, a relative named Batti Oraon or Satya, as well as placement agent Santosh Chaudhary.
Lurki’s employer of one year, well-connected restaurateur Anil Ahuja, has gone scot-free so far.
However, constant prods by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights led UP police to recently book him under various sections of Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. He may be arrested soon. "We have received an action taken report from UP police. They have assured us that they are probing the case thoroughly," senior NCPCR member Vinod Kumar Tikoo told The Telegraph.
The circumstances under which Lurki’s body was found on June 19 have not been cleared. The SC/ST commission expressed grave concern over the rising number of trafficking cases from Jharkhand and demanded a separate law to regulate placement agencies.
"Placement agencies follow virtually no rule. There is no record of girls employed in big city homes. The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act should be amended to deal with domestic worker issues. Jharkhand government should also stop migration and trafficking of girls, especially minors," said its chairman Rameshwar Oraon.