Ranchi, June 27: She wore glittering clothes and heavy gold ornaments befitting her crorepati status, strutting around saying no one could dare touch her as she could buy anyone with money.
That's how Chanho remembers its infamous celebrity Lata Lakra (35),
alleged maid-turned-trafficker, who was arrested on June 22 over charges
of smuggling girls, mostly minors.
Whistleblower NGO Diya Seva Sansthan puts the figure at over 1,500 in the last decade and police tend to concur.
Lakra may well be eating her words in jail.
The Chanho resident, who went to Delhi in 2000 as a maid and thrived
there "placing" girls, has built a formidable empire if her landed
property on home turf is any indication, which Aradhana Singh, the
Khunti anti-trafficking head who arrested her, calls "only a fraction".
The Telegraph team, which visited Chanho on Friday,
saw three plots said to be owned by her. In one, this non-resident
Jharkhandi has her home, which she used to visit once a month or every
couple of months, as well as 10 units rented out to tenants, and at
least 12 shops in two storeys, the basement and ground floor.
In the second, a shopping complex is coming up. The third Lata is
learnt to have leased out to a high school. While the first and the
third plots are around 36 decimals each in size, the second is around 20
decimals.
Such is her clout in the area that her tenants refused to speak to The Telegraph while the shops and the school, Birsa Munda Ucchavidyalaya, were closed.
" Pata nahin kyun nahin khula. Sab bhada pe laga hai. Dare honge shayad.
(Don't know why shops didn't open. All are on rent. May be they got
scared)," said another shopkeeper on the other side of the road, who
doesn't pay rent to the alleged human trafficker.
Lata's sister-in-law Sushma - Aradhana Singh had called the
brother-in-law a "clean" man working with Jharkhand Police, posted in
Dhanbad - lives on the property with her two-year-old daughter.
From the outside, the house looked less than modest, but a peek inside revealed a big LCD TV, chandeliers and an expensive sofa.
Unwilling to speak, Sushma seemed scared. But, when she finally did, she denied knowing anything.
" Mujhe bhi wohi pata hai jitna apko pata hai akhbar ke madhyam se. (I only came to know through newspaper)," said Sushma about Lata.
"Had I known anything about her or the kind of work she does, I
wouldn't have got married to this family. I hail from a respectable
family in Ranchi. I never bothered to inquire what she does. She lives
in Delhi. She comes here once in a couple of months. She has her own
trusted staff who take care of her finances," Sushma said.
A neighbour defended Sushma. "Sushma doesn't get a penny from Lata.
She always complained about her (Lata's) high-handedness," the neighbour
said.
Though no one dared to comment on Lata's alleged occupation as a
trafficker of girls, a woman stopped this correspondent and agreed that
Lata should have been arrested.
" Jo hua theek hua. (Whatever happened was good)," she said.
"Tabah karke rakhi thi. Chowk pe puchiye sab pata chal jaega. (She was a
big menace. Ask people in the market, you will know)," she said.
Prodded, this woman said: " Hamesha gundai karti aur bolti thi humko kaun kya karega, kharid lungi sab ko Dilli wali bhasha mein. (She would always boss around, say who can touch me, I can buy everyone, speaking in that Delhi accent)."
An elderly grocer agreed she was badmouthed.
"She always maintained her husband held a top post in the army," he
said, admitting that he read in the papers that Lata's husband Arun
Lakra was actually a coal labourer. "At times, she would move around
with local police. And besides the three plots you see here, she has
bought more land, according to local gossip."
A policeman who was part of the raid team on June 22 night said it
seemed Lakra wore around 1.5-2kg gold ornaments when she was arrested.
"Her jewellery screamed the kind of money she has. She went on saying
she was a simple maid," he laughed.