By IANS
New York : An affluent South Asian couple in the US, who were arrested last week for keeping two Indonesian slaves at their Long Island house, have formally been indicted by a federal grand jury.
Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and her husband Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani were also slapped Tuesday with additional charges of harbouring illegal residents. It was alleged the couple, who run an international perfume business, knew that the two Indonesian women had entered the US illegally.
The slavery charges stem from federal statutes that forbid forcing people to work against their will through violence or threats of violence.
The case came to light when one of the women, identified only as Samirah, was seen wandering aimlessly last week, wearing only pants and wrapped in a towel. Her face was bruised, and when shop employees tried to communicate with her, she made gestures of slapping herself and uttering what sounded to them like the word 'master', prosecutors said.
Varsha's attorney, Charles Ross, said: "My client is going to enter a plea of not guilty and we will vigorously defend the case."
Mahender's attorney, Richard Willstatter, said his client also intends to plead not guilty.
The indictment filed at the US District Court came after the three daughters of the Sabhnanis, who had lived in the house while the Indonesian women were there, declined to testify before the grand jury, Newsday reported.
A federal magistrate, who had been handling the case since the couple's arrest, had ruled that the couple could be released on bail, provided they met what was termed a stringent set of criteria. These included to be confined to their homes, wearing electronic monitoring ankle bracelets and having their telephones monitored.
Samirah later told the police that she and a second woman, identified as Nona, were forced by the Sabhnanis to work long hours, given little food, forced to sleep on mats on the floor, kept hidden when company came and threatened with violence.
Prosecutors had alleged that the two Indonesian women were beaten with broomsticks, cut behind the ears with a knife, burnt with scalding water, made to walk up and down stairs as much as 150 times in a row, and were once forced to eat 25 extremely hot chilli peppers.