Patna: Chained and tied to a pillar, a 14-year-old girl was held captive and forced to work as a bonded labourer for over three months by a moneylender in Bihar's Bhojpur district because her father was unable to pay back the money he had borrowed.
The moneylender would allegedly force the minor girl to work throughout the day and later chain her legs to a pillar in the evening. The girl finally managed to escape on Thursday.
When News18 spotted her at the local police station, she looked frail and could not speak properly after being starved for many days.
The girl is a native of Tipura village under Bihiya police station of Bhojpur. She still had the chains on her when she was brought to the police station. It took half an hour to cut open the chains.
Narrating her story to a stunned audience at the police station, she said, "My father Lambu Kharwar had borrowed some money from sahukar KP Kharwar, but he could not repay even the interest amount due to extreme poverty. At last, he left the village. Me, my brother and mother were tortured by the sahukar. One day, my mother also decided to leave the village but he (sahukar) came to know about her plan and forcibly took me to his house while my mother and brother managed to escape."
"For the past three months, I was only given one meal a day. I was forced to do all the domestic work during the day and by evening, he would to chain me to a pillar so that I could not run away," she said.
On Thursday, the girl managed to crawl out of the house with her legs still locked in a chain. Locals spotted her when she screamed for help.
Additional Superintendent of Police Manjit Shyoran told News18 that the police later raided the house but by then the accused, KP Kharwar and his wife had fled the village. However, the police said that they would be arrested soon.
Meanwhile, police have arrested a local blacksmith Rambharan Sharma who had made the chains used to confine the girl on the orders of the moneylender.
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