Pooja Gaud always knew that she had been kidnapped. When she was taken away by a couple at the age of seven, the young Indian woman realized what was happening to her. But there was no way to escape. She finally managed to do it nine years later. Taking advantage of a moment when her captors were asleep, took his cell phone and looked up his name on YouTube. He was quickly confronted with videos of his disappearance in Mumbai and posters with phone numbers.

Seven months. That was all she needed until she plucked up the courage to ask for help from Pramila Devendra, a maid who worked in the house Pooja had been taken to, and where she ended up working as a maid. baby sister of the son of the couple who kidnapped her. Pramila Devendra agreed to help her, without thinking twice and called one of the numbers that appeared on the poster: replied a neighbor of Pooja’s mother, that brought mother and daughter into contact, he tells the BBC. The two spoke via video call and then arranged a meeting.

All my doubts disappeared immediately. I knew I had found my daughter,” her mother, Poonam Gaud, told the BBC, explaining that she was sure she was in front of her daughter because of a birthmark.

After the encounter, the young indigenous woman, some relatives and the domestic worker who helped her escape went to the police to file a complaint. “I told the police everything. I even told them where my kidnappers lived,” Pooja told the BBC. The details she provided allowed the identification of the couple, Harry and Soni D’Souza, meanwhile accused of kidnapping, threats, physical violence and violation of child labor laws. The police announced that the the man was arrestedbut did not provide the reasons why the woman was not detained as well.

मुंबईतून हरवलेली पूजा तब्बल 9 ? हा
व्हीडिओ नक्की पाहा. #PoojaGaud #missing girl @MumbaiPolice @CPMumbaiPolice @jdipali @MPLodha @Maha_MahilaAyog pic.twitter.com/O2EUeVKOxz

— BBC News Marathi (@bbcnewsmarathi) August 17, 2022

Thus, on August 4, the young Indian woman, now 16 years old, was reunited with her family. However, he never saw his father again: he had died four months earlier of cancer. Without the only breadwinner for the family, the mother now sells food at a train station to support herself and her three children.

The kidnappers lured her with an ice cream. Pooja became her slave: “They hit me with a rolling pin and my back started to bleed”

Pooja was coming to school with her older brother when she was kidnapped. But the two got upset and the boy entered the school, leaving her sister behind, because she was late. Now, to the BBC, the young woman told what happened: she was outside the school in the capital of the state of Maharashtra, when a couple offered him an ice cream. That’s how they lured her into her car. He was first taken to Goa and then to Karnataka, western and southern states of India, respectively. On the way, they threatened to beat her if she cried or showed up.

During the first days with his captors, Pooja was allowed to attend school.. But for a short time. After the couple had a child, she was taken out of school and they all moved to Mumbai, exactly where she lived with her family before her abduction. There, she became a slave to the couple and her son.

They beat me with a belt, kicked me and punched me. Once I was hit with a rolling pin so hard that my back started to bleed. They also forced me to do housework and work 12 to 24 hours at a time,” he told the BBC.

Pooja has now discovered that the The house where he was kidnapped was, in fact, close to his family’s. But the young Indian girl not only did not know the roads (Bombay is the largest city in India), but she was always being watched and had no money even to make a phone call. So for nine years she couldn’t ask for help or try to find her way home.