Kidnapped when she was seven, free today at 16. Nine years of nightmare for an Indian girl, who managed to escape "miraculously", reports the BBC, to her tormentors.
She disappeared from Mumbai on January 22, 2013, when a couple approached her on leaving school with the excuse of offering her an ice cream and took her away. The two - Harry D'Souza and his wife Soni - loaded her into a car at gunpoint, taking her first to Goa and then to Karnataka.
But Poja Gaud, this is the name, never gave up. He tried several times in vain to escape. Then, years after the kidnapping, she managed to sneak up on the kidnappers' phone for her name on YouTube, and saw dozens of appeals with her photo, including some phone numbers to contact for any reports.
Always under close surveillance of the couple, it took her seven months to find the courage to ask for help from the maid of her kidnappers , a 35-year-old named Pramila Devendra who was aware of the abuse to which the girl was subjected.
“She immediately accepted and contacted one of the mobile numbers shown in the videos. My mother's neighbor called and told her everything. He organized a video call with my mom and so we came up with a plan to escape, ”said the teenager.
Then the escape, Poja Gaud left to go to work supervised by the maid, who helped her to catch the train and reach her family in Mumbai . Unfortunately, he was unable to hug his father, who in the meantime died of cancer.
At first she was treated well, says the girl: “They kidnapped me because they wanted a child and couldn't have one, but when Soni got pregnant, things got worse . They took me to Bombay, they started beating me and making me work. I was always locked in the house apart from work, sometimes they beat me with a belt, kicked and punched me, made me bleed. They also forced me to do housework ”.
(Unioneonline / L)
