When Suniel Shetty Saved 128 Nepalese Women From Sex Trafficking And Arranged Flight Tickets For Safe Return

Suniel Shetty Saving Women From Trafficking: Women falling prey to sex trafficking has been the heinous acts that are not often discussed. But do you know our own action hero Suniel Shetty once turned a savior for them. Not only that, but he also arranged the flight tickets for their safe return to home. On top of that, the actor ensured that this was not disclosed until one of the survivors opened up about it years later.

Suniel Shetty Saved Nepalese Women From Sex Trafficking

The actor stayed mum about the incident for about 28 years. However, one of the survivors, Charimaya Tamang, opened up about how she was trafficked from her village and how they were saved from a sex racket by the actor. She said, "When the government was confused as to how to go about the operation, it was India's film hero, Suniel Shetty who supported us," Charimaya said in the Vice India documentary - The Forgotten Ones: Human Trafficking In Nepal.

In the video, she also said, "On February 5, 1996, the whole of Kamathipura, the brothel area, had been cordoned off by police and social workers. They got us out of there. This is how we were rescued. After being rescued, our government (Nepal) refused to bring us back. They said we didn't have our birth certificates or citizenship cards. That is when your film hero, Suneil Shetty supported us. He got plane tickets to Kathmandu for 128 women who had been rescued."

More About The Incident That Took Place In 1996

On 5 February 1996, Mumbai police rescued 456 survivors, aged between 14 to 30, from Kamathipura red light area in Mumbai. Out of the total rescued women, 128 were Nepalese, however, they didn't have citizenship proof, for which the Nepalese government didn't want to take them back. Later, Suniel Shetty arranged flight tickets and paid the amount to ensure that the women reached home safely with the help of his mother-in-law, Vipula Kadri, founder of the 'Save the Children' NGO, for the operation.

Speaking about this, he said, "We didn't really think about the price of flight tickets. The cost was not that important. It was the effort that counted. My mother-in-law started the Save The Children NGO and it's active even today. All of us are involved in it. The inspiration comes from her. She was the one who decided to take the risk of rescuing the girls and thereby getting into the bad books of the mafia."

When asked why he stayed mum all these years, he revealed, "Firstly, we didn't want to glorify ourselves. It was not right as these girls were involved. Secondly, yeh aisi gandi mafia hai ki kabhi chodti nahi hai. Jitne low profile mein operation hone ki zarurat thi, waise hi hua (The operation took place in a low-profile manner). Hence, nobody even knew about this incident."