Following allegations of gang rape, torture and murder threats, a New Delhi-based Saudi diplomat on Thursday shifted to his country's embassy from his apartment in Gurgaun.

 

According to SSP Rajendra Man Shrestha, counsellor at Nepal's embassy in New Delhi, the diplomat shifted to the Saudi embassy along with his family to avoid possible arrest. He said that the Indian authorities have expedited procedures for taking action against the diplomat.

 

The chief of protocol at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) called in the Saudi ambassador Thursday and conveyed a request of the Haryana Police for cooperation in the case of two Nepali women, MEA spokesman Vikas Swarup tweeted. The two were rescued from the apartment of the diplomat following captivity there for more than three months.

 

Responding to diplomatic pressure from Nepal, Saudi Ambassador Saud Mohammed Alsati was requested to make the diplomat in question available for a statement to the Haryana Police.

 

Meanwhile, following the arrival back of the two victimized women repatriated from New Delhi on Thursday, the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) here has exposed a new route via Sri Lanka for women being trafficked to the Gulf.

 

During preliminary investigations into the Nepal nexus in crime, traffickers were found to have supplied girls and women via Mumbai and Sri Lanka to Saudi Arabia, CIB Director DIG Hemanta Malla told Republica.

 

The two women informed that there were other girls held captive in Sri Lanka for trafficking to Saudi Arabia.

 

The two Nepali women--a 48-year-old from Morang and a 30-year-old from Baglung -- had been sent from Saudi Arabia to New Delhi after they were found to be living in the Gulf country with fake documents.

 

Rights activist Bal Krishna Pandey, who accompanied the two to Nepal and was involved in their rescue, said this was a complicated case among 500 other cases he has handled. "We were manhandled, thrashed and our lives threatened during the first raid in the apartment," he recalled. He argued that Nepal should put pressure through diplomatic channels to ensure justice for the women.

 

'I never imagined such a fate at this age'

 

The older of the two rescued women said, "I had never imagined, I would be sexually abused at this age."

 

Recalling her ordeal, she told Republica, "The diplomat was not a human being, he was a demon under the cloak of a 'highly reputed man'". The diplomat repeatedly raped and tortured, inviting his friends to participate in the depravity, she added. Plagued by poverty and family dispute, she was lured abroad by some agent. If Nitu, a girl from Darjeeling, had not met them in the Saudi diplomat's 'apartment of horrors', no one would have found us, she said. They thought of escaping but the apartment was located on the 13th or 14th floor. She also said that they were taken to Naintal for sexual exploitation.