AIZAWAL(TNN): A Mizoram Police team led by Joseph Lalchhuana, SP, CID (crime) rescued two Mizoram girls who were being forced into prostitution inMumbai and also arrested two accused in the case, the police said on Wednesday. TOI had reported the rescue of one of these girls on June 21, Tuesday.Police said, we were trying to rescue four girls, but the whereabouts of two of them are still not known. The two accused who were arrested also claimed, they do not know about the other two girls.
Police said one of the girls hailed from Mizoram-Assam border town of Vairengte and the other three from southern Mizoram's Lunglei district. All four were lured into going to Mumbai by a Mizo girl who called herself Zodingliani (27) and her non-tribal accomplice, Shodit Hasta Thapa (28). The duo promised the girls jobs in massage and beauty parlours; the four girls were brought to Mumbai in the last part of April this year.
Once they reached there, the girls realized they had been duped. Instead of getting them jobs at parlours, Zodingliani sold them as commercial sex workers, police said, adding the matter came to their notice after one of the victims managed to communicate her situation to her parents who, in turn, sought help from the authorities.
A criminal case was registered in the Vairengte police station and the state government, acknowledging the urgency of the situation, constituted a four-member rescue team led by Joseph Lalchhuana, who reached Mumbai on June 19 and launched a search operation in the city.
Two girls, the one from Vairengte and one of the three from Lunglei, were rescued from Jung Santacruz area in Mumbai the next day (June 20) at around 11:30pm. The police team also arrested Zodingliani and her accomplice, Thapa, in Mumbai the same night.
The police team, along with the rescued girls and the two accused persons, will arrive at Mizoram's Lengpui airport on Thursday, a senior police officer said.
This is the second time Mizo girls were rescued from the clutches of flesh traders by the state police outside the state, the first time being the rescue of two Mizo girls from Goa last year.
