A case was filed against nine people in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district for allegedly holding several young women captive for months and sexually assaulting them on the pretext of providing them with jobs, police said.
The accused people were associated with a forged marketing firm, they said.
"All the nine accused are absconding, and police have launched a hunt to nab them. The case was registered following the direction of a court," said deputy SP Vinita Sinha.
One of the survivors had filed a complaint against the nine people before the court, she said.
"We recorded the statement of the complainant as well as several other victims. The complaint revealed that the accused first approached her through social media in June 2022 and asked her to visit Muzaffarpur to get a good job," said Mr Sinha.
"When she came to Muzaffarpur, she was first kept in a room. Several other young girls were also staying there. Later, they were shifted to an undisclosed location and all were engaged in making calls to young women and offering them lucrative jobs in their forged firm," the officer said.
Eventually, the accused persons started staying with the victims, she said.
"The victims were held captive by the accused. The victims were beaten up by the accused and sexually abused as well. The complainant and other victims were also coerced into marriages, she added.
"Later, they were deceived into aborting their fetus. The complainant also told the police that whenever they asked for their salaries, the accused used to tell them that they were part of the firm now. Finally, the survivor managed to escape and went to the police station to lodge an FIR," said Mr Sinha.
The survivor said that the police refused to accept her complaint initially, and because of that, she approached the court.
Mr Sinha said it would be investigated why her complaint was not lodged by the police at first.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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