SHILLONG: Harassment by employers and alleged rape by one of their associates have compelled a domestic help to lodge a complaint with police. Adding to her agony, the child born of rape was sent for adoption by the accused against the wishes of the victim.
The FIR was filed at Umsning police outpost, Ri-Bhoi, with the victim alleging that she suffered mental and physical torture at the hands of her employer and was raped twice by another person.
The victim filed a complaint against Shanbor Lyngdoh, his wife Indaker Tariang, residents of Lumnongrim in Umsning and Manbha Nongtri from Syadheh in Ri-Bhoi district.
Other than ill-treatment by the employers, Lyngdoh and Tariang, the victim alleged she was raped twice by Nongtri in which Tariang was complicit.
She had been working as a domestic help at the residence of Lyngdoh and Tariang from 2013-17 during which, she stated, she was beaten with broomsticks, flip-flops, punched and slapped, and at times was not allowed to step out of the house.
In 2016, she was raped by Nongtri while she was sleeping, and as she screamed Tariang told her to keep shut as it was late in the night.
The accused raped her the second time in a car following which she got pregnant.
However, when she was 5 months 6 days pregnant, she was taken to Arya Hospital, Guwahati, to get the pregnancy aborted. However, the hospital refused to perform the procedure. She was then taken to another hospital, which too refused to perform the procedure.
On April 3, 2017 she was admitted to Nazareth Hospital and on April 6 delivered a baby girl; however, she was forced by the employers to give up the baby for adoption and to sign necessary papers.
She added that her consent was not acquired during the consideration for adoption which was prepared by Lyngdoh.
She had to agree as she was helpless.
During the process of adoption, an individual inquired the reason for the adoption and the employers lied saying that the victim didn’t want the baby.
Though she stated that she was kept prisoner within the house, news of her suffering started to spread among the local residents who even began to suspect that Lyngdoh had fathered the baby.
Following the suspicions of the neighbors, a meeting of the Dorbar Shnong was convened but the employers threatened the victim not to reveal anything.
After the meeting, she was taken to the employer’s home and it was on a November evening that she decided to flee the house and went to her mother’s place.
The victim alleged that Tariang had since then been texting and calling her mother with threats that they remain silent or else they would be taught a lesson.
In the FIR, she stated that her family had been living in a state of constant fear, on account of the threats from Tariang. The victim added she was scared of Nongtri too.
In the FIR, she appealed that Lyngdoh, Tariang and Nongtri be booked for torture, rape, abetment of rape, falsifying her identity with intent to cheat her and her family and child and for wrongful confinement.
She asserted that transacting in illegal adoption and separating her from her child is a form of trafficking.
She has urged the police to retrieve her documents from Nazareth Hospital. She has received news that her baby is with the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Nongpoh. She expressed shock that the CWC did not lodge an FIR against the persons who handed them the baby or against those who signed the adoption papers.
