In a tragic incident, a 28-year-old woman, working as a domestic help in Shipra Srishti society, Indirapuram was found lying in a pool of blood near Jacaranda tower late at Sunday night.
The police said that the victim, Nirmala had leaped off a third floor window of the building. The entire matter is shrouded in mystery as the police is yet to find out the reason behind the woman’s drastic step.
Moreover, Shalimar Placement Agency, the Noida based agency which had arranged the maid’s employment is suspected to be fake.
Nirmala, a native of Bhuinpur, Odisha was employed in flat 303 of Jacaranda tower, owned by SK Bose, a Captain of the Indian Merchant Navy. Bose’s family members said that the maid could not have stolen anything from the flat as she was only carrying a pair of slip-on shoes and a kitchen knife that was later found hidden in her clothes after she was taken to the hospital.
The incident had taken place at around 12.30 pm when the maid had climbed out of the kitchen window before falling down. “We found the contact of Shalimar Placement Agency on the internet. A person named Shahabuddin provided us with the services. He brought Nirmala to our flat against an initial charge of twenty-five thousand rupees. We paid only fifteen thousand rupees and decided to pay the rest after police verification,” said Sunil Chaudhary, brother-in-law of SK Bose.
While Bose is away on duty, the flat is occupied by his mother, wife and children. Family members along with other relatives were present in the flat at the time of the incident. Bose’s wife is recovering from a surgery and relatives had come to visit her.
“My sister was unwell and the domestic help who was previously employed had taken leave for a few months. We had to hire another help immediately. We had planned to pay a monthly sum of four thousand rupees but were yet to finalise the amount as the police verification was still pending,” said Lalit Chaudhary, younger brother in law of SK Bose. Chaudhary added that Nirmala could not have accessed any other exit in the flat as it was pretty late at night and thus she used the kitchen window. Family members maintained that after completing her chores such as cooking and washing utensils, Nirmala had retired to the servant quarter at around 11.00 pm.
“All the other rooms which had balconies were locked from the inside and the main gate was also locked. Her movement was recorded in the CCTV camera installed inside the flat. She is spotted while going to the kitchen at around 12.11am and a few more times. She went to the kitchen for the last time at 12.22 am and did not return to her room. We then received a call from another resident of the society about a woman who had fallen from a flat,” Chaudhary further said.
Bose’s relatives rushed her to Shanti Gopal Hospital in Indirapuram. She was later shifted to Max hospital in Vaishali where she breathed her last.
Attempts to locate the agency’s office have failed. “The registered address is Gali-3, Bhangel, Sector 82, Noida. We tried to find the office but the address does not exist. The phones have also been switched off,” Chaudhary added.
The police is yet to find a lead in the case. “The body has been sent for post-mortem. We are yet to find out why the maid decided to jump. We do not suspect any sexual harassment at the moment as there were many people in the flat including women and several children. We are investigating as to why the woman had leaped out,” said Samar Bahadur Singh, police in-charge of Niti Khand police post.
“We are trying to contact the victim’s family members and locate the person who had arranged her services for the Bose family,” Singh further said.
Speaking about the incident, members of Shakti Vahini, an NGO working for the welfare of women and children, said that there are over a hundred documented cases of maids falling to their death from high rises in NCR registered over the last three years.
“In most of these cases, the maids are tribal women, brought in from rural areas of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bengal, Bihar and Assam. They might be forced or lured into the work by shady agencies. At times, they do not like the work surroundings and are unable to communicate with employers properly and later try to escape. In some cases, physical and sexual assault is also involved,” said Rishi Kant, a Shakti Vahini member.
