The whereabouts of eight Nepali women, who went missing from the Dilshad Garden-based Sanskar Ashram (shelter home) in New Delhi on Saturday midnight, remain unknown till Wednesday evening. The women, who moved in from another shelter home in Dwarka, had been staying there for the past eight months.

Local police in coordination with the Delhi Commission for Women had rescued them a year ago from the JB Market, the biggest red light district in Delhi. A child from the Indian State of Bihar has also been missing along with the Nepali women. As many as 80 children and women have been staying in the shelter home.

The sudden disappearance of the women from the ashram, which is under round-the-clock CCTV surveillance, has been seen as a mystery. It is unclear whether they fled by their own will, or were abducted. Police have filed an FIR against the shelter home operator.

According to Indian news agencies, this is not the first incident of women’s disappearance from the shelter home. Five women had disappeared from the same shelter home two years ago. Soon after the incident, a team headed by Swati Maliwal, chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women, reached the shelter home for inspection. The commission subsequently called on Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia to take action against the shelter home officials, saying the women and children were kept in squalid conditions. In response, Sisodia has issued a directive to the authorities concerned to the take action against the guilty officials.

Following the order, the Delhi government suspended district chief of Department of Women and Child Development and the shelter home operator. There were dozens of incidents where the operators of shelter homes had been involved in the disappearance of children and women in the past. In August this year, 24 women were rescued from a shelter home in Deuriya, Uttar Pradesh, over child molestation scandal.

The Nepal Embassy in Delhi said that police informed it about the disappearance of the women. “We have already received official information from police. I have apprised the Indian Ministry of External Affairs about the incident,” Acting Nepali Ambassador to Indian Bharat Kumar Regmi said.

Published on: 6 December 2018 | The Kathmandu Post