Our Bureau
Hyderabad
A Special Court for National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases in Hyderabad has sentenced nine people, including eight Bangladeshi nationals, to life imprisonment in a 2019 human trafficking case involving Bangladeshi women trafficked into India and subsequently forced into prostitution. The court delivered its order on September 17 and also imposed a total fine of ₹1.37 lakh on the convicts. Failure to pay the fine will invite an additional three months of simple imprisonment.
The case involved a trafficking network that lured Bangladeshi women to India with promises of lucrative employment and decent wages before forcing them into prostitution, according to the National Investigation Agency.
The case was initially registered by the Telangana Police at Pahadi Shareef Police Station following an operation in Hyderabad in September 2019. During the operation, three Bangladeshi women were rescued from a brothel operating in Jalpally village. Another woman was rescued from a house in Mahimood Colony, Balapur.
The NIA subsequently took over the investigation and re-registered the case on October 12, 2019.
The nine convicted persons were arrested from different locations in Telangana and West Bengal during 2019 and 2020. They were prosecuted under provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Foreigners Act, 1946, and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956.
The convicted persons were identified as Ruhul Amin Dhali, Mohd Yousuf Khan alias Md Imran, Bithi Begum alias Khadija Shaik, Imamul Ghazi alias Mohd Rana Hussain, Mohammed Al Mamun, Sojib Shaik, Suresh Kumar Das alias Sagor, Mohd Abdulla Munshi alias Abdul Sarkar and Mohd Ayub Shaik.