KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 4Nepal Police, with the help of some rights organisations in India, rescued a 16-year-old girl from the hands of human traffickers.

She was allegedly being sold in a bid to sacrifice her life as per some tantric religious practice. HoR gets first member elect, NC's 29 year old candidate from Mustang emerges victorious India to import 22 megawatt more energy from Nepal Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau of Nepal Police said their preliminary investigation into many details wherein the girl was chosen and trafficked, revealed that she was most probably taken to India for sacrifice on the full moon day. The girl, who came from an underprivileged family of Dhading district, was rescued from Ranhola street No 2 of New Delhi on January 31.

She was then flown to Nepal the following day and kept in a house in Kathmandu.

Police said the traffickers had searched for a girl with specific features in accordance with the ritual human sacrifices that often happens in India.According to Senior Superintendent of Police Jeevan Kumar Shrestha, head of the AHTB, traffickers often seek girls meeting certain criteria to be sold to people involved in tantric cults.

"The girls need to have fair skin type and slender body without any blemishes or scars on the body.

They also mostly search for innocent girls before the onset of their menstruation cycle," Shrestha said.

He further said these were the classic features that dark religious sects searched for in the girls meant for sacrifice in the cult's religious ceremonies.Multiple media outlets in India, citing data of the National Crime Records Bureau, have reported that over 100 human sacrifices have been conducted from 2014 to 2021.Police have arrested six people in connection with the trafficking of the Nepali girl who had gone missing from her house since 3 December 2022.One of the traffickers was a woman who was with the girl from the very beginning.

This woman would check all the body parts of the victim multiple times to check if there was any scar or tattoo imprinted on her skin.

The traffickers had lured the girl saying that she would only have to appease the baba and in exchange she would get plenty of riches.

She had no clue about their evil intention.Upon finding that she fulfilled the criteria, the girl was taken to various tantric babas where she had to stay for some days to prove she was fit for the ritual for over two months."The girl was taken to three tantric babas before she being delivered to the main tantric who would most probably kill her in the name of god or black magic," Shrestha said.

He further said three other Nepali girls were rejected by those babas earlier.The girl, who had seen all the suffering due to poverty and lack of parental love, had agreed to go with the traffickers hoping to make a quick buck.

"Only after being rescued did she know from us that she was a potential victim for the sacrifice, which turned her black and blue all of a sudden," said DSP Dan Bahadur Malla, the Bureau's spokesperson.During the two months of trafficking, the girl suffered sexual harassment as the traffickers and tantric babas would strip her of clothes seeking scars on her body.Her rescue was possible after her maternal grandparents filed a case with the police around two months later.

The AHTB soon contacted an organisation called 'Kin India' which helped the police trace the girl.

All the traffickers are now in police custody.A version of this article appears in the print on February 5, 2023, of The Himalayan Times. .

This article first appeared/also appeared in https://thehimalayantimes.com