KARACHI: Two Kenyan women, who were recently recovered in a joint action carried out by the Anti-Violent Crime Cell and the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee on the request of the Kenyan high commissioner in Pakistan, told a judge on Wednesday that they were victims of human trafficking and had been exploited by a local couple.

The AVCC-CPLC had recovered the two women from Punjabi Saudagaran Society in Scheme-33 and arrested two suspects.

The law enforcers claimed that Lule Abdi was brought here from Kenya by suspect Haider Rehman as part of human trafficking. Haider, his wife Nudratul Aid along with other accomplices — Agha and Raja Hasnain and unknown women — had brought another woman, Terasa Mwangi, on the pretext of providing her a job in a travel agency.

The said suspects then snatched passports of the women. Haider had also got bank accounts opened in the name of the woman before bringing her to Pakistan for ‘criminal activity’.

AVCC had recovered them during raid in Scheme 33

Recording their statements under Section 164 of the criminal procedure code, one of the women said she had been ‘lured’ into initiating a joint business by her Pakistani friend in Nairobi while the other woman said her near-expiry visit visa-related difficulties had been exploited by the local couple.

Narrating her ordeal, Lule Abdi, 32, told the judge that she came to Pakistan with Haider Rehman. “We were friends in Nairobi. We decided to do business together. When they reached here, Haider took my passport. He kept me in a house and said if I complain to anyone, he is going to kill me.”

However, she contacted her brother and then she was rescued by the police and the high commission.

The second woman, Terasa Mwangi, 21, said she had been in Pakistan for a year on a visit visa. She said she had been kept in illegal confinement by Haider, his friends and his wife.

The two women asked the court to allow them to go back to their country.

The suspects have been booked in a case registered under Sections 365 (kidnapping), 34 (common intention) and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 at the Sachal police station on the complaint of Rasam Masood of the Kenyan High Commission.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2023