Three Rohingya men, Mohammad Ayas, Hafeez Ahmed, and Mohammad Yunus, have been handed 10 years in prison for their involvement in a trafficking and rape case, according to Hindustan Times.
The convicted trio trafficked Rohingya women from Bangladesh to Jammu Kashmir, where they arranged the marriage of the women, in exchange for money.
The three were also accused of raping two men in their early twenties at a Rohingya refugee camp in Nuh, Haryana. These two women had illegally entered India from Bangladesh. The victims paid Rs 25,000 each for their passage.
Residing in the Rohingya refugee camp in Nuh, the convicts facilitated the women’s journey to Delhi via Mizoram and Kolkata.
In September 2021, they demanded Rs 15,000 per woman for their release, but despite receiving Rs 30,000 from their brother, they didn’t release the women. Instead, they took them to Malab village in Nuh, finalizing a deal to sell them to a woman in Kashmir’s Anantnag for Rs 70,000 each.
The woman who purchased the victims has evaded arrest, and the individual who facilitated the border crossing for Rs 25,000 remains unidentified.
The case came to light in November 2021, when the brother of the victims’ contacted authorities, leading to the registration of a case against the three Rohingya men under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.
Arrested in December 2021, the convicts confessed to the crime and were denied bail in 2022, subsequently being shifted to Nuh jail in 2023.
The investigation of the case is still going on.