Joon’s journey of horror, pain and suffering
Morung Express News
Dimapur | May 31
At midnight April 31, 2010, Mrs. Parmokar received a call that would change her life forever. A phone from Wokha police station said, “We have found your daughter…make arrangements to come here.” She had been awaiting this news for eight years. Mrs. Parmokar and two NGO workers from Dimapur reached Wokha on May 1.
In 2002, eight year old Joon was lured by a Naga lady ‘agent’ to work as domestic help in Wokha town. She was living with her family in Bandhari sub-division. Joon’s parents were reluctant to send her; but Joon left on her volition because her family was in dire need of money. Little did she know that her life would change forever.
Six months later, in the first year that Joon left home, Mrs. Parmokar decided to meet her daughter. She arrived in Wokha, having no clue about her daughter’s whereabouts, as the ‘agent’ refused to divulge details. However, she managed to trace her daughter to a pharmacy at the end of the town. Her daughter’s employer didn’t appear happy to meet her. But knowing she would not leave without speaking to Joon, the employer decided to let them meet- in her presence.
The employer was a Naga lady living alone, without a family. Joon took care of the house; she cooked, did laundry, fetched water and firewood for her employer. At eight, Joon barely managed to take care of herself and she was working like a slave. Joon’s mother paid visit’s for the next three years.
On the fifth year that she arrived to meet her daughter, the employer informed that Joon had “disappeared.” Mrs. Parmokar was out of her wits and began arguing with the Naga lady. Despite all attempts, she gathered no information from Joon’s employer. Finally she filed an FIR at the Wokha police station in 2007. Mrs. Parmokar soon left Bandhari with her family, hoping the police would soon trace her daughter.
In the meantime, Joon’s family had migrated to Medziphema and then Dimapur. For four years, Mrs. Parmokar could neither eat nor sleep properly. Her health started deteriorating. She would cry for her daughter everyday and avoid places where children played. She even began doubting if her daughter was alive. Bu as destiny would have it, her prayers were answered in 2009.A Naga couple for whom she worked came to know her story. The couple approached an NGO based in Dimapur for help. Within seven months, her life changed.
Wokha Women Cell, headed by UBSI Lochumbeni, the investigating officer, traced Joon to Guwahati where she was living with an Asamese family. Joon was brought to Wokha from Guwahati and reunited with her family on May 1. She is the second daughter in the family of five.
According to Joon, her first employer used to beat her up everyday. “I was so young…I couldn’t work fast so she used to beat me up,” Joon said, on the verge of tears. Joon said she was required to fill one big drum of water everyday-on time. Apart from household chores, Joon fetched firewood from the jungle. She served the lady for four years.
One day when Joon’s employer beat her, she went to ‘grandmother’s house’ to complain. The ‘grandmother’ assured her that she would speak to her employer in the morning. But on the way back, one man kidnapped her. Joon said she recollects hearing a woman and child’s voice in the house where she spent the night. She did not see their faces as her eyes were blindfolded and hands tied. The next Joon remembered was that, she was in Guwahati.
In Guwahati, Joon was kept with a family who treated her like a slave, she said. “I used to look after two kids, cows, goats and ducks,” Joon said. She tried several times to leave that place but couldn’t. Joon was so desperate to leave that she approached a shopkeeper to adopt her. The man refused. She continued living in those conditions for months and ran away until couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t know the language, the faces but Joon begged people to take her into their homes as domestic help. Finally, one man took her home. Joon said that the man and his family treated better than the others.
Joon is now reunited with her family after 12 years. With the help of Wokha women cell, Prodigals Home and the Domestic Workers Movement, Nagaland unit, Joon and her family can now hope to live happily ever after.
The man who kidnapped Joon in Wokha was arrested by the police. He was arrested from a school in Arunachal Pradesh, where he is a teacher. Co-accused, Palli, was arrested from Kamrup. The police also detained the Naga lady ‘agent’ but she is reportedly out on bail.
