New Delhi:
The shrieks pierced the air of the fancy South Delhi colony, revealing that something was very wrong in the apartment where a 50-year-old woman, who worked at a private company, lived with her mother.
On Monday evening, a 15-year-old domestic help was rescued from the house, with horrific wounds all over her body.
"Her head was smashed. She may have had dog bites as well. The whole neighbourhood said we used to hear screams but nobody dared to come forward and rescue this poor girl," said Rishi Kant, an activist who was part of the rescue team that found the girl.
The police and members of an NGO reached the flat at 6 pm. The elderly woman who answered the door refused to let them in. The rescue team had to wait for four hours before the woman's daughter returned. She had come with her lawyer.
When the team entered the house, they found the teen domestic help lying almost naked on the floor. Her body had gashes in different parts; she alleged that her employers had ordered their two dogs to bite her.
To stop her from running away, the mother-daughter duo allegedly kept her naked or wearing bare minimum clothes.
The 15-year-old is now in hospital. A part of her skull is fractured; doctors say she was lashed with knives.
Kiran Walia, Delhi's minister for Women and Child Development, visited her this morning and promised a fast-track court will handle the trial of Vandana Dhir, the employer, who has been arrested.
"It is a horrible and barbaric act. The government will bear the cost of her treatment at a private hospital," Ms Walia said.
The girl said she was brought to Delhi by her aunt a year ago from Jharkhand and since then she had been beaten almost regularly with a stick or a broom, stabbed with a knife and punched and kicked.
Neighbors say the women used their dogs to intimidate anyone who tried to speak to them.