Her father is a well-to-do businessman and landlord. "He had his own steel furniture factory. But, he re-married when my mother was still alive. Then we began living separately in Sector 22, mother started her own little business, getting clothes stitched and supplying them," she recalls.

This was about three years ago. A few months later, she was married off to an LIC employee in Ludhiana. She says he often used to beat her up demanding more dowry and they were soon separated. Once again she began living with her mother and two brothers. "Then on August 25, 1996, mother died. We went back to live with father and his family. But we soon had to move out into a rented house in Sector 22," she adds. "Our stepmother was not happy with us staying with them, often we went without food," says her 16-year-old brother, the youngest of the lot. She says she ultimately took up a job as a Maths teacher in a private school near her house, earning Rs 2,000 a month. Things went on well for a while and then suddenly, her infant daughter fell seriously ill. "I could no longer teach at the school, so I began tuitions at home, but the money wasn't enough. There were three of us and my daughter. My brothers were attending school, the rent hadn't been paid for two months," she adds.

It was at this juncture that she was introduced to "Aunty" a middle-aged woman, she says, who lives in Sector 20. "One of my student's mother arranged for a loan of Rs 3,000 from Aunty. When I went to pay her a part of the money, she insisted that she wanted the entire sum. I said I couldn't and she said there was a way out: I had to sleep with two men and in turn, be paid Rs 3,000. In a moment of weakness, I accepted." She adds: "After that Aunty began blackmailing me, she said she would tell my brothers and family that I was a prostitute. I continued to go out with the men she sent me with. Money kept pouring in. We were no longer in debt, the elder one of my two brothers passed his Class X exam last month, the younger one his Class IX." After working for about three months for Aunty, she says she quit. She was arrested last Friday, after the police conducted a "raid" on an STD booth along with two others. "My family came to know of it. As it is, being in the trade is humiliating enough, I went throughmore humiliation. I was beaten up by my father, my brothers are cross, the elder one says he'll never talk to me," she says sobbing. "My uncle has promised jobs to my brother. My father says he'll pay the rent now. They say I won't have to work again. I hope they mean it."