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New Delhi / AFP
Police rescued 22 Nepali women from a hotel in New Delhi who were allegedly being trafficked from the impoverished Himalayan nation to the Middle East, and are searching for two suspects, officers said on Saturday. Officers from the force’s serious crimes branch raided a hotel near the capital’s international airport on Thursday morning after receiving a tip-off from the Nepali embassy.
One of the trafficked women had earlier escaped from the hotel and reached the embassy, leading to the police raid.
“Twenty-two women were rescued in the raid. We have identified two accused who are evading arrest,” Ravindra Yadav, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) in New Delhi said. “The women will give their testimonies before a court today. The visas indicate most of them were flying to Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries,” he said. The trafficked women were desperately looking for work in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in April 2015 and were lured with the promise of jobs in the Middle East, another officer said.