The Female Detective on a Daring Mission to Rescue India’s Trafficked Women

Nearly 200 girls are kidnapped in India every single day, many sold into sex work. The authorities too often look the other way. So Nirmala Walter takes things into her own hands.

The world is a dark place right now, and there are so many news stories that can be incredibly difficult to read. But the thing that inspires us most at Narratively is when we learn about someone dedicating their life to fighting back and solving one of those horrific problems, no matter what it takes. When India-based journalist Aliya Bashir brought this story to our attention, we knew we had to share it with you.

Photos by Smita Sharma | Story edited by Alessio Perrone and Brendan Spiegel

On a loud evening veiled ​​with polluted air, the bazaars of central Delhi’s red-light district swarm with passersby. It’s April 2021, and the rush of scooters, bicycles, fruit and vegetable carts, and mooing stray cows turns wide Garstin Bastion Road — which hosts around 100 brothels — into a bottleneck. Dozens of chirping young men huddle near the narrow, dimly lit staircase that leads to the entry of “Kotha 64,” an establishment housed in an old three-story building with cracks running up the brickwork and white paint flaking off the facade. They ogle the girls and women who peer from windows and tiptoe on balconies, reciprocating with flying kisses. 

At around 9 p.m., Nirmala B Walter, a petite 46-year-old woman with eyelashes slanting down her round, fair-skinned face, covered with a black handkerchief to avoid recognition, moves past the crowds and approaches the brothel’s staircase. As she and her team of six others creep up, someone blows a sharp whistle — in Delhi’s sex work underworld, an unmistakable signal of imminent danger. “Dammit, there must have been a leak,” Walter thinks to herself. Her visit should have remained secret. The men disperse and commotion ensues.

Her cover blown, Walter walks in, joining forces with some 20 other people, including nongovernmental organization (NGO) workers and police officers, some in plain clothes and some in uniform. Some sneak in pretending to be customers, others enter after Walter. The team is looking for a 15-year-old girl we’ll call Hansika. Originally from the southern state of Karnataka, Hansika was forced by her grandmother to marry a 40-year-old man. The man sold her to another woman, whom Walter suspects then sold her on to Kotha 64. She believes Hansika arrived at the brothel five days earlier. A contact of Walter’s pretended to be a client to study the brothel’s entry and exit routes, observe the women’s conditions, confirm whether Hansika was there, and tell her he could help her. He told Walter that the girls and young women were forced to attend to customers frequently, with little hygiene or decent food. And he confirmed that Hansika was there.

“Look for the minor girl,” Walter tells her team. They rummage through the dimly lit, foul-smelling ground floor and its small rooms where the girls eat, sleep and attend to clients, but they only find condoms scattered on the floors, walls plastered with vanity Bollywood movie posters, and hand-painted metallic boxes and makeup kits peering out of glassless cupboards. No Hansika. The team goes upstairs, but the second floor is no different. In the distance, Walter hears the slamming of a door, followed by the sound of sobs. In one small room, a shirtless man grabs a woman’s arm and yells at her. The man reaches for his clothes; then the pair hides their faces and walks out of view.

Walter and her team continue opening every closet and hidden passage all the way to the top floor — to no avail: no trace of Hansika. 

Walter buries her face in her hands. The raid is the culmination of a year-long hunt, during which she and the NGO she works for, Catalyst, collaborated with the Special Cell of Delhi Police, other frontline NGOs and several volunteers, totaling about 60 people. The team had received information saying that several girls in the brothels wanted to be rescued. Today, it split into six groups, each of which raided a different brothel. Walter is looking for Hansika because she is underage, and according to her informant, in terrible condition. She now worries Hansika might have been hidden in a secret room or escorted away through a passage when the whistle was blown. Has it all been for nothing?

As the rest of the team looks for Hansika on the lower floors of the three-story building, Walter spots thin rays of light leaking from the gap beneath a closed door.