Disturbed at seeing large crowd at airport, Judith gives media a miss

New Delhi, July 23 (IANS) Rescued Indian aid worker Judith D'Souza, who landed in New Delhi on Saturday evening from Afghanistan, gave the media a miss at the airport as BJP leaders gathered there to receive her gave credit to the government for her rescue.

After flight A1 244 landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport around 5.50 p.m., Judith took at least one hour to come out of the airport.

As she came out, she was perturbed on seeing the large crowd and ran back inside.

She again emerged after 10 minutes only to board the car along with her brother and drove past the crowd.

Hailing from Kolkata, Judith, 40, who works for the Aga Khan Network, was seized by gunmen on June 9 in the Qala-e-Fatullah area of Kabul while she was returning home after dinner at a friend's place. Judith was working with the NGO as a senior technical adviser since July 2015.

News of her rescue was conveyed by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday morning through Twitter.

"I am happy to inform you that Judith D'Souza has been rescued," Sushma Swaraj tweeted.

Among the BJP MPs who had gone to the airport to receive Judith were Meenakshi Lekhi and Parvesh Verma.

"She has been through a lot of trauma in the last few days. She was not in a mental state to speak to the media," Lekhi told the milling reporters.

"The manner in which she was exploited and tortured was beyond human dignity. The Centre deserves all the credit for her rescue so quickly," the BJP MP added.

Lekhi also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and thanked him for the rescue of Judith.

Party MP Verma said: "We did not talk to her because of her condition. She was not allowed to talk to anyone or use the toilet during her captivity. She was even denied access to water and phone. She ate something after she met her brother in the airport."

He said a doctor attended to Judith at the airport and her BP was found to be low. She was given medicines, Verma added.

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