Bhubaneswar, July 30 -- In July 2016, a 16-year-old speech-and hearing-impaired girl from Sundargarh district was abducted from her village at night, setting off a frantic search by her family. The grim sequence of events that followed -- until her rescue -- exposed the brutality of Odisha's human trafficking networks.

Four people forcibly abducted the girl from her home on July 13, sexually assaulted her before trafficking her to Jind in Haryana by train where she was forced into domestic labour including tending cattle.

Weeks later, her father received a phone call from a man in Haryana who said the girl had been sold to him and had stopped eating. The victim's father and a family member travelled to Haryana, where her captors eventua...