JALANDHAR: The Jalandhar police have rescued a Gorman woman from the custody of a local resident, who, after his deportation from Germany in June last year, had been trying to persuade her to marry him since October, when she arrived in the country on a four-week holiday.
Disclosing this at a press conference here, the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP). Dinkar Gupta, said 67year-old Mrs. Elizabeth Krawczyk was restored to Thomas Weich, a staffer in the German consulate in Delhi, who come here last week to seek police assistance in tracing her following a lip-off by her son in Ger. many
The district police chick said her alleged captor Bakhtawar Singh alias Pal Singh, 27of nearby village Nagra has been arrested.
D.S. Sachdeva, legal advisor to the German embassy in Delhi, who accompanied Thomas Weich to theist. thanked the Jalandhar police for what he described as “prompt professional action in rescuing the German national
He said that last week, he along with the German staffer met Dinkar Gupta and gave him whatever information they had about the woman and in less than five hours. Elizabeth Krawczyk was with us in the hotel. “It was indeed a miraculous ” by the police and “we are grateful to him, “headded on behalf of the German suffer.
Articulating her replies to journalists’ queries with the help of Thomas Weich, Dr. Sachdeva said that Krawczyk came into contact with Bakhtawar Singh, who was known to her as Pal Singh, at a camp for seekers of political asylum in Germany al Wucrzhurg where she worked.
It was there that she became friendly with Pal Singh and promised him to visit India on a holiday when he received his ordered exportation. She said she was received at Delhi airport by Pal Singh on October 23 and accompanied him to his residence at Nagra.
Dr. Sachdeva said though she was not mentally tortured yet she suffered mental agony” because she was not allowed to go out of his house.
He said that the woman got an opportunity to ring up her son in Germany sometime in the third week of January but the telephone line got disconnected before she could give sufficient details about her captor and the place or her captivity
He said when the German embassy in Delhi learnt that she was in trouble, they could not do much because of the scanty information provided by her son. The embassy asked him to collect and send over more details and it was then that her son visited her apartment in Frankfurt and sound the address of Pal Singh. Dr. Sachdeva said besides Pal Singh, his sister-in-law also tried to impress upon Mrs. Krawczyk to marry Pal Singh. It was she who mostly looked after the German who, he added, was treated cordially during her illegal confinement since late October till her rescue by the police.
Dr. Sachdeva said Pal Singh had taken away her 2,000 German Marks and a few hundred rupees in Indian currency. He said her passport, in which her Indian visa expired on January 27, was also taken away from her during her captivity in an apparent bid not to allow her to leave the country. Dr. Sachdeva said she appeared to be distressed as she cried on her rescue.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 17, 1995
