Hyderabad: When the anti-narcotics squad of Telangana police arrested a 28-year-old small-time businessman in May last year for buying drugs, they thought they had caught just another drug user. But they stumbled upon a much more sinister racket where young women were turned into drug addicts, sexually exploited, and drained of all their financial savings.Posing as a businessman running a small IT company looking to send women to the US to complete lucrative jobs, the accused lured victims with basic educational qualifications like B.Com and BSc through social media and shady consultants. The women were later drugged at so-called office parties, allegedly raped when they were unconscious, bled of their money in the name of fake training sessions and left with nothing but shattered dreams.An FIR against the accused was filed in May last year. However, the plight of the women came to light only recently when they revealed their trauma to psychologists at de-addiction centres. Senior police officers told TOI that they identified at least six such women, four of whom were later sent for psychological counselling and de-addiction.Police officers said the women were given what are known as date rape drugs, LSD, MDMA and cocaine. The women say they don’t know how often they were exploited and by how many men as they often lost consciousness at the parties.”I applied for a job after seeing an ad on a social networking site,” said a 27-year-old from Nellore. “The job offered a Rs 15,000 salary. Because I had no work experience, I paid Rs 50,000 upfront for training sessions. The businessman promised to send me to the US after working in Hyderabad for a year.”A mother of a three-and-a-half-year-old and separated from her husband, she said her employer persuaded her to change her ‘lifestyle’, undergo a complete makeover, and improve her ‘networking skills’ to survive in the US.”During the week, we worked on what seemed to be legitimate IT-related projects. On weekends, we were regularly taken to parties at farmhouses and resorts. They gave us tablets or something we could not identify on a piece of paper, ostensibly to avoid hangovers after drinking binges. Everything was hazy after that,” the woman said, adding that while she suspected something was wrong, she stayed on because she needed the job. “I thought I could trust this group as we all worked together. It was only after attending mandatory counselling for addicts that I realised the situation I was in,” said the woman, who even attempted to die by suicide after she was caught and booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. Other victims TOI spoke to said that the company operated out of a small apartment. “My friend referred me to it, so I believed the opportunity was genuine. At a party, they put a piece of paper in my mouth and gave me something to drink. After that, I don’t know what happened,” she said. A common thread between these women and other victims is that they neither had degrees from reputed institutions nor the required skills to work in reputed IT companies. With no work experience, many were looking for a shortcut to land jobs with a big firm in the US, even willing to forgo a salary and pay their employers to process the paperwork. Most came from humble backgrounds and were hoping to overcome their financial struggles.”I believed I was working on a project for an MNC while in the company. A couple of months after joining, I was told that visa processing would cost lakhs. They offered to deduct the amount from my salary, and I agreed, thinking I was already giving interviews to clients in the US,” said a 22-year-old from the city. She added that she was introduced to the party culture after joining the firm and later realised they were being made to use heavy drugs after her boss was caught with drugs in the city. “I have seen at least six such cases. They did not suspect anything as women were used to lure other women. Seniors were grooming them and introducing them to various substances, either knowingly or unknowingly,” said Devika Rani, a de-addiction expert.
Read more on The Times of India
