PUCL Bulletin, March 2001
Young Woman Saved
In a rare gesture of courage, sacrifice, and humanity Shri Suresh Jha and his
wife Devkala Devi rescued a 20 year old recently married tribal woman of Bihar
who had lost her way in Delhi.
Ms. Poonam Tanti was separated from her husband while traveling by bus in the
NOIDA area on December 24, 2000. Somehow she reached the gate of a housing complex
in Mayur Vihar, Phase I, followed by a number of rickshaw pullers, everyone
trying to persuade her to accompany him saying that he knew her. Shri Suresh
Jha took her to his nearby Jhuggi and his wife shooed away all the rickshaw
pullers. The Jha couple gave her shelter and asked the details of her family.
They sent a letter to the address of her father in Munghyr in Bihar.
The Jha couple reported the matter to the General Secretary of the PUCL, whom
they knew personally. The General Secretary took the help of Ms. Gopa Joshi,
the General Secretary of the Delhi branch of the PUCL. Ms. Poonam was taken
by the Jha couple towards NOIDA but the police stopped them suspecting that
they had kidnapped her. They had to return home. Ms. Gopa Joshi contacted the
ACP and the SHO of the area. She also took them to the village in NOIDA area
from where Ms. Poonam said that she had set off for Delhi. But she could not
recognise any landmark.
In the meanwhile, the PUCL national General Secretary contacted the Bihar PUCL.
Through the efforts of the Begusarai PUCL and the Begusarai Police her family
was contacted. The letter that the Jha family had sent to her father also reached
the village in Munghyr from where she hailed. A phone call was received that
her sister's husband was being sent to take her back. Her brother-in-law reached
on the January 14, 2001 and thus after 20 days of uncertainty she went back
to her father's home.
Shri Suresh Jha and his wife thus saved her from falling into unscrupulous hands.
- Y.P. Chhibbar, General Secretary