Penury, large family made him send daughter to Delhi

For Nanhe Mandal (name changed) from Orissa, it was his helplessness to feed seven members of his family alone which forced him to send his 14-year-old daughter to Delhi to do a job and earn some money for the family.

But little did he know that after one and a half year he will find her

helpless on a bed in RML hospital struggling to stand or sit on her own.

Today, he is blaming himself for his daughter's agony even when he knows the name of the persons responsible for her suffering.

With a single set of clothes and no money the father-daughter duo for the past fortnight is spending their lives in room number 41 of Gynecology ward at RML Hospital.

Mandal's poor daughter suffered grievous injury in her spine and legs after her employer forced her to lift a heavy iron trunk.

Expressing his woes Mandal said he is struggling hard to cope up with the problems he and his daughter are facing while staying at the hospital.

"We are surviving on the mercy of the hospital staff. I have no money to feed us or buy medicines for my daughter. I have to beg on the streets for buying food for myself. With my poor Hindi I am finding it difficult to communicate with people here and explain them my problems," said Mandal who added that in this winter season he has been spending sleepless nights in the hospital premises, as the hospital staff do not allow any male to stay in the Gynecology ward during night.

Asked if he knows about the reason behind his daughter's serious injury Mandal, innocently, said he has been told that she slipped on the floor in bathroom at her employer Abhinav Arya's residence in Paschim Vihar.

When told the actual story about her daughter's injury Mandal broke into tears and said, "It was my so called brother Suresh Behera who had shown me big dreams that my daughter will get good education if I send her to Delhi to work as a governess at a businessman's house. They had promised me to pay Rs 1,000 per month as her salary. But, for her one and a half year service all I gotin return is R10,000 and my ailing daughter."

Even as the crime branch of Delhi Police has arrested Arya and Behera under several appropriate sections of law, the grief of a helpless father and his ailing daughter, a victim of child trafficking, would not end until, and unless, they get justice.